Senior Natalie Sokulski was recently awarded two medals in the Central Illinois Regional Art (CIHSAE) Show.
She received gold in the drawing category and bronze in the painting category.
Sokulski was originally approached by Normal West art teacher, Kailey Peterson, who suggested to Sokulski that she submit a few pieces into the competition.
“I kind of just sent her a big email or folder of what I thought were some of my best works, and she submitted them,” Sokulski explained.
CIHSAE is an exhibition co-sponsored by IHSAE as well as the Illinois Art Education Association Central Council. At Normal West, about five other students submitted pieces.
One of the same pieces Sokulski had won an award for this year won a Unit 5 Arts Alive award last year.
“I submitted a lot of pieces, except that competition was just within Unit 5 schools whereas this one was more statewide,” Sokulski stated.
“It’s a boost of confidence, honestly, to know that my art can get recognized in that sort of way. [It feels like] I’m going in the right direction, especially since it’s something that I do plan to pursue for a career or at least like within my collegiate career,” Sokulski added.
The painting that was awarded third place was a large watercolor piece that she worked on for two to three weeks every day for at least a couple of hours.
“At the very beginning [of creating the piece], I thought I was going to have to scrap it because like I pretty much drowned the paper on accident, but then I fixed it,” Sokulski explained.
At first, the painting was a school project where she was prompted to create a piece that conveyed an emotion.
“A lot of the times, my art tends to gravitate towards creating things based off of other media I consume,” Sokulski stated.
The painting was based on her favorite movie of the time: Bright Young Things.
“The actor, Michael Sheen, plays his character Miles, and he conveys a lot of emotion within that movie, and I think it’s very beautiful,” Sokulski explained.
Sokulski’s drawing actually originated as a birthday gift for her dad, which she created in only one day.
The drawing was made with a mix of alcohol markers and colored pencils.
Similar to her painting, the drawing was also based on media. The drawing portrays a scene from the show Peaky Blinders.
Sokulski struggles with coming up with specific things she would change about the pieces, but she does acknowledge that she’s grown a lot.
“I made them last year, and so already, I feel like my art has grown since then. I recognize things about them where I’m like, oh, I would change this little thing for the watercolor one,” Sokulski said.
“It sort of gets to a point where you have to just kind of look at it and be like, okay, and that’s just what it is, and it’s done. So yes, in theory, there’s plenty I’d love to change and improve about it because I think there’s always room for improvement, but I also don’t feel a lot of pressure to need it to be perfect,” Sokulski continued.
Sokulski hopes to pursue art as a career or at least do it in college.
She is especially interested and thinks she would enjoy creating storyboard art and has many dream projects she would like to be involved in.
“[‘Arcane’ or anything in that realm is something I would like to work on.] I love the idea of mixing video games and television. I think that’s super cool. Honestly, anything like comic books or graphic novels, I think that would be really fun to get into as well,” Sokulski explained.
On Saturday, March 29, Illinois State University will be conducting a student art exhibition showcasing Sokulski’s piece at 1–5 p.m. in Julian Hall.
