Calling All High School Art Students!

During my first graduate class this fall, I connected with a high school art teacher in a neighboring town who is super enthusiastic and wonderful.  She gave me all kinds of information on contests both, national and international, that her art classes participate in every year.  I thought, “Wow, wouldn’t that be fun?”  The only competitions my kids partake in are the local county art shows we have every year.

Last year I tried to register my school for the Vans CustomCulture contest, but I missed the deadline.  For whatever reason two days ago, it popped into my head and luckily I was well ahead of the registration cut off, and now, you are, too!

Van’s holds an annual competition for High School art students all across America to design and create super unique, colorful, crazy vans sneakers!  First, students generate ideas and sketch on the four different types of sneaker templates.  Then, they transfer their best concepts onto four actual pairs of sneakers that are sent to the school for the kids to paint on (how fun!).  The finished sneakers get sent back to van’s where there’s a series of voting sessions and the top prize is $50,000 for your school’s art program! Wowza!  Runners up each get $4,000.  Not to shabby!

Here’s a fun promo video explaining how it all works:

On the official site, which I linked above the video,  you can find all the important dates and deadlines, and download templates for your students to begin their designs.  Register soon!  You only have until early February.  Good luck!

I plan on having my Fine Art III classes participate in the actual contest, but I  printed a bunch of the van’s sneaker templates (there are 4 in all) and squirreled them away for my Fine Art I groups.  They’ll make for a great emergency sub plan one day!