Young Artists Draw on the Holiday Spirit

How can anyone judge art, especially art by children? That's our annual challenge, to pick 12 finalists and one overall winner in Weekend's Holiday Wrapping Paper Contest. Judging is subjective and the criteria vast. What matters most: originality, color, technique, pattern or wrap-ability? Do whimsy and innocence trump technical skill? These are tough questions, ones best left to the professionals. And who knows kids' art better than elementary school art teachers?

The three judges we recruited for this year's contest -- Robyn Megonigal (Abingdon Elementary School in Arlington), Judith Stroman (Capital City Public Charter School in Northwest Washington) and Rosalia Miller (National Cathedral School in Northwest Washington) -- said the kids had the toughest jobs. "I think to come up with a design that goes that well together, that's really hard," Stroman said. But lots of young artists did just that, wowing the judges -- and the Weekend staff.

Totaling 1,476 entries, this year's crop, whether painted, stamped or drawn, mixed the traditional and wacky (Santa and reindeer on a surfboard) and mined classic motifs (lots of trees and snowmen), and some went right for the heart (family scenes with "I love you!" dialogue bubbles). The colors were peppy, the glitter profuse and the creativity, well, that went through the roof.

The judges spent hours debating aesthetics, degrees of difficulty and whether an entry captured the holiday spirit. It was a long, philosophical and, at times, contentious afternoon, but in the end the three judges chose as the winner the one that Stroman called "beautiful and calming" and Miller praised for "the softness, the childlike theme."

The artist behind the winning entry, Zoe Q. Bell, has a childlike innocence that's only natural: One month before her fifth birthday, Zoe is the youngest single-artist winner in our contest's 11 years.

Feisty and precocious ("I talk in complete sentences," she said), Zoe is a preschooler from Germantown. For her photo shoot for the Weekend cover, she came to The Post with her mom, Tara Nguyen, and her 21-month-old brother, Owen. Nguyen said neither she nor her husband, Doug Bell, is an artist, though each has artistic siblings. Zoe's entry -- done with permanent markers, watercolors and watercolor pencils -- took several hours, though Nguyen said they tried to speed up the process at one point: "We had to use the hair dryer to dry it" before putting it in the mail.

Zoe's snowmen are various sizes, each wearing a different hat, with clouds and suns scattered across a light-blue background. Zoe pointed out her favorite snowman -- the one in the top left corner -- tracing his big, round belly with her finger. Why snowmen? "I just like them," she said.

She also liked the fake snow she sat on for the photo shoot, batting around pieces as she patiently waited between shots. "We'll have it on all our clothes!" she said, sticking pieces of the fluff on her smiling brother's shirt during a break.

Her innocence shines through her snowmen-on-blue-sky design, which we offer to readers as a sheet of wrapping paper. The judges had heaps of praise for all the entries ("You want to frame them, they're so gorgeous," Miller said), while lauding the 12 finalists' work. Picking a winner is a hard task, but, as Miller said, "that's the beauty of being a judge . . . you grow in the process."