Introduction

The second Hong Kong Primary Schools' Digital Drawing Competition came to a successful close Saturday, January 21, 2006. The competition was held by the Hong Kong Catholic Diocesan Schools' Council, together with the Hong Kong Education and Manpower Bureau. By promoting the "combination of art and technology, for innovation anywhere, anytime" through this event, the Council hoped to strengthen interest in the arts and creative abilities among students.

Participating students had to complete within 2 hours on the morning of the competition a landscape painting based on the surrounding scenery and according to a theme selected by the sponsors. Participants had to scan any images that they wanted to use on-site, and they were not allowed to use or incorporate any past works, photographic images, copies, or any other stored images. Teachers were naturally forbidden from helping them in the creative process.

Because this was a digital drawing contest, traditional art tools such as pencil and paper were replaced by computers and graphic tablets. The Wacom Graphire4 4x5 pressure sensitive graphics tablet was designated as the official drawing tool for this competition.

Wacom Graphire4 becomes contest's designated art tool

The theme of this competition, held on the Avenue of the Stars in Kowloon's Tsim Sha Tsui, was "At Home in Hong Kong." Unfortunately, the weather did not cooperate, raining on the contest, so the organizers were left with no choice but to move everything indoors to a nearby schoolhouse. Thankfully, this did not seem to have any effect on the students' enthusiasm. Each student scouted out their ideal location, started their computers, and hooked up their Wacom graphics tablet. Once the contest began, all of the students immediately grabbed their pens and got to work, transporting the ideas and images from their heads, stroke by stroke, into their computers.

Judging Standards and Results

The contest was quite a challenge. As the minutes and seconds ticked away, the students concentrated their creative energies into their artwork. Their task was to create a beautiful work of art relevant to the assigned theme, but with such a short period of time, how would they fuse the ideals of Home with an image of the city of Hong Kong? And by computer too!

The contest was honored to have representatives from the Hong Kong Catholic Diocesan Schools' Council, the Hong Kong Tourism Board, the Hong Kong Education and Manpower Bureau's IT Education Group, the Hong Kong Society for Education in Art, various computer companies and sponsors serving as judges. To ensure that all judgments were fair and impartial, all works were affixed with numbers to prevent judges from seeing any information about the artist such as their school, grade, age or sex. The judges gave points based on four main areas of consideration: composition, colors, technique, and innovation.

Because all of the students participating in this contest displayed above average skills, and each work had its own individual charm, selecting the winners was a very difficult decision for judges. The winning artworks are displayed below, but we would like to thank all the students who participated in this contest for challenging themselves to explore the new world of digital creativity.

First Place:

One recipient, Pun Hoi-Gin of Saint John the Baptist Catholic Primary School

Received a trophy for his school, an HP TC1100 Tablet PC, and a certificate of merit.

Second Place:

Two recipients:

Left: Au-Joeng Dak-Hou of Aberdeen St. Peter's Catholic Primary School
Right: Chan Jin-Bok of Tai Kok Tsui Catholic Primary School (Hoi Fan Road)

Each received a trophy for their schools, an HP PDA, a Wacom 4x5 graphics tablet, and a certificate of merit.

Third Place:

Five recipients:

Each received a trophy for their school, an HP inkjet printer, a Wacom Graphire4 4x5 graphics tablet, and a certificate of merit.

First line, from left to right:
Coi Sin-Hang and Jyu Pui-Jin of Shak Chung, Shan Memorial Catholic Primary School, Chan Gaa-hou of Poo Ai Catholic Primary School

Second line, from left to right:
Lee Zeon-wing of Tai Kok Tsui Catholic Primary School (Hoi Fan Road), Man Gin-ji of Maryknoll Fathers' School (Afternoon school)

First Place Winner Pun Hoi-Gin of St. John the Baptist Catholic Primary School Reflects on His Encounter with Digital Art

Following the contest, we conducted a brief interview with the first place winner, Pun Hoi-Gin of St. John the Baptist Catholic Primary School. Pun told us that he has been doing drawings and other art for five years, since his second year of primary school, and that he really enjoys it. But he said that the first time he ever touched a Wacom pressure sensitive graphics tablet was right before the beginning of this contest. Wacom pens are especially light and easy to handle, and just like with a regular paint brush, a little practice can give you complete control. The only real difference is that Wacom pens are only used in digital drawings and multimedia creations. Pun Hoi-Gin excitedly said that now that he has a Wacom graphics tablet, all that he needs to do is take his pen in his hand to get all types of different colors, styles, and effects in his computer's drawing program. Not only is it exciting, it's also so convenient!

(Left) a quick sketch prepared by Pun Hoi-Gin for our interview.
For this painting, Pun used a Wacom Graphire4 pressure sensitive graphics tablet and ArtRage drawing software.

(Right) From left to right:
The mother of champion Pun Hoi-Gin, Pun Hoi-Gin, director of St. John the Baptist Catholic Primary School's Art Department, and headmaster of St. John the Baptist Catholic Primary School

*** We would like to thank Wacom's agent in Hong Kong, Gateway Computer Resources Ltd., for its strong support of this activity.***