Students Grade 4-12 : Send your masterpiece to the Kids’ Fish Art Contest
Artwork by Jessica Kaercher 2012 Overall Winner. Courtesy MNR
Calling all kids! Grab your paints and pencil crayons. The Kids’ Fish Art Contest is back.
This annual contest, sponsored by the Ministry of Natural Resources, asks budding Rembrandts to picture what it’s like to be a fish – literally! What do they look like? Where do they live? What do they eat, and what eats them?
Every year, the ministry picks two species living in Ontario lakes and rivers. This year’s contest focuses on the largemouth bass, an olive green fish with a spiky dorsal fin, and the bloater, which swells up when taken from its deep-water habitat.
Bloater fish. click to visit MNR resource page for art contest.
All artwork should depict one of these two species in its natural habitat. The art will be judged on its quality and attention to detail. Students must also prepare a one-page composition.
Judges will choose winning entries in three age groups – Grades 4 to 6, Grades 7 to 9 and Grades 10 to 12 – one of which will win the grand prize. The three winning designs will appear on the 2014 Young Angler’s Licence and proceed to the international division of the State-Fish Art Contest sponsored by Wildlife Forever in the United States.
The prizes are quite a catch. The winners from each age group win a complete set of Lucky Strike fishing gear, and their artwork appears on the 2014 Young Angler’s Licence. An overall winner, chosen from the three age group winners, reels in an exciting prize package that includes a fishing trip to Pine Portage Lodge and a day of fishing with Italo Labignan, host of the Canadian Sportfishing Television Show.
Largemouth bass, Click to visit MNR Resource page for art contest.
The contest is open to Ontario students in Grades 4 to 12. Participants must submit their original, hand-drawn creation to the Ministry of Natural Resources before the contest closes on November 29, 2013. Students may enter only once.
“The Ministry of Natural Resources is proud to sponsor the Kids’ Fish Art Contest,” says Natural Resources Minister David Orazietti. “It opens young people’s eyes to the rich biodiversity in Ontario’s lakes and rivers. We hope this outlet for their creative abilities inspires a long and rewarding interest in protecting our natural resources.”
More information is available at ontario.ca/fishartcontest.
