Saratoga News

Photograph by Robert Scheer

Jessica Hwang, 8, shows a sampling of her artwork, along with the boxed gold medal she won. Rebecca Hwang, 5 1/2, doesn't take her big sister too seriously.

Young artist wins international competition

By Shari Kaplan

Eight-year-old Jessica Hwang of Saratoga was only doing what comes naturally--painting a picture--but she ended up winning a gold medal in an international art exhibition.

Her inspiration for creating this masterpiece? Her mother, Sue Hwang.

"Since she was 5 years old, she liked to draw everything. She just grabs the paper and draws. I was very impressed," Sue says of Jessica's early-blooming talents. Jessica's younger sister, Rebecca, 5 1/2, also shows an artist propensity.

When Jessica was a first-grader, Sue signed her up for classes at Wang's Art Studio, located off Highway 85 about three miles north of the Hwang home. At the time, Sue recalls, she noticed her daughter's creative skills and wanted to give her some professional encouragement.

Sue says Sheng Wang has taught Jessica new techniques and helped her gain familiarity with various artistic mediums. Now a third-grader at Foothill School in Saratoga, Jessica delights in illustrating book reports with drawings and sketches that she says the stories bring to mind. She also gives family members drawings for birthday and holiday gifts.

"I like to draw animals, and I like to copy from books," explains Jessica, who says her favorite colors are turquoise, green and blue. She also enjoys drawing people and scenes with people in them, although she doesn't really have a favorite topic.

"Every time I draw, I draw different things," she says, adding that "the thing I most want to be when I grow up is an artist."

That wouldn't surprise Sue.

"She can watch anything and draw anything. She does things very neat--very slowly and with a lot of detail. Whenever I take her somewhere, she's always observing things," Sue says, recalling a trip to the Monterey Bay Aquarium and Jessica's aquatic-themed drawings afterward.

It was thanks to encouragement from Wang that the young artist entered the 28th Annual World School Children's Art Exhibition, held earlier this year in China. Her submission, an oil pastel and watercolor titled "Mother," competed with art from thousands of children from the United States and other countries.

Initially, Jessica experienced a case of "artist's block" when she couldn't think of what to draw. Sue helped out by standing in front of Jessica, arms folded across her purple blouse, her brown purse slung over her shoulder.

Using this familiar "model" as a jumping off point, Jessica created a brilliantly colored portrait of a smiling woman and child with a colorful background that includes a warmly glowing lamp atop a well-stocked bookcase, a curious cat on the floor and birds within a birdcage and outside a window. At Wang's suggestion, Jessica colored her and her mother's faces like patchwork quilts in a rainbow of colors.

"I thought that was crazy--people don't have colored faces," Jessica says with a chuckle. In fact, Jessica says, she wasn't even that satisfied with the piece, but entered it anyway. That's why she was surprised, she says, to find out she won.

Coincidentally, another Saratoga resident, 9-year-old Kevin Shou, received recognition in the same exhibition with a Select Award for his oil pastel and watercolor painting called "Museum." Kevin attends Christa McAuliffe School and also studies at Wang's art studio.

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