In 2023 my dad started sharing my artwork online. At the time, I really wanted to buy some nice fishing gear, and he told me I needed to earn it myself, but he would help me. People were very supportive of me and after selling a lot of drawings, I was able to buy what I wanted. One of those people also reached out to us to let us know about this national art contest that the NRA puts on every year, its called the George Montgomery/NRA Youth Wildlife Art Contest.
The theme for 2023 was to draw any native North American species that can be legally hunted. I thought about a few different animals to draw, and decided to go with sandhill cranes because I regularly see them here in Florida. Sandhill cranes are big, beautiful birds, and are actually also a lot of fun to watch. They have very silly personalities and I often see them dancing with each other and throwing things up in the air. Where I live they are also very used to people and sometimes let you walk right up to them.
I wasn’t very optimistic about the contest because all the winning entries from other years were done in paint and pastels, and I prefer to use markers. But a few weeks after we sent my entry, we were notified that I had won 2nd place, which included some nice prize money!
You can see my drawing and the other winners on the NRA website https://artcontest.nra.org/award-winners/2023-award-winners/
In the picture below, I found a friendly crane that let me take some great photo references.
First I started with a few pencil sketches and then drew my final composition on bristol paper. Here is my pencil sketch before inking. I wanted to show the different behaviors of sandhill cranes, so I made 3 of them. One is flying and calling (they make very loud calls), the one in the middle is just a big portrait because I wanted to show their head details, and the one on the right is opening its wings during a dance.
This is the final image that I submitted to the contest.
