When Julia Barclay begins work in her grade 7 art class at St. Joseph school here, a large number of her classmates watch to see what she is going to draw.
Julia is so talented in art that her parents have sent her to private art classes – and the results are showing already.
Julia recently won a contest and had her water colour of a chipmunk chosen for a TD Canada Trust sponsored calendar for 2008 in the Robert Bateman Get to Know Program. While she did not win inclusion in the annual Get to Know calendar, her work was selected by TD Canada Trust, which has a Friends of the Environment program, and which works with the Bateman project. The bank used her picture in a calendar that was distributed coast to coast.
The calendar program and competition was started by Bateman, the famed wildlife artist, and has been inspiring connections between children and the environment for nearly a decade.
The nation-wide project is focused on reaching Canadian youth in four ways: the Get to Know Writing and Art Contest, the Get to Know School Program, Get to Know products, and now the new Get to Know Interactive CD.
Choosing a chipmunk to depict for her contest entry was an easy one for Julia.
“My art teacher [Kim Johnson] used to have chipmunks coming to her deck,” Julia said. “She fed them peanuts.”
Last March, Julia learned about the Bateman competition and she decided to enter. She spends 2-1/2 hours doing art classes on Saturdays, and she said she does personal art work at home about five to six hours a week. She spent seven or eight hours working on her contest submission, and, when asked if she was obsessed with doing a great job, there was no hesitation when she said, “Yes.”
Her father, Stewart, said of his daughter, “She loses herself in it.”
Kellie Barclay, Julia’s mom, said her daughter actually got to meet Bateman when her aunt took her to a public showing.
Stewart said, “She [Julia] has got a book with his signature in it.”
“He was pretty cool,” said Julia of the western Canadian artist.
Bateman is not the only artist who interests Julia, who has also been to the Tricia Romance gallery in Niagara-on- the-Lake.
Her interest is not simply a passing fad, either. Two years before she hits high school, Julia Barclay has already decided that she wants to be a professional artist. In fact, she is already considering studying art in either Guelph or Toronto.
And what do her friends think of her passion – and her first published piece?
“They think it’s really amazing – and they love it,” she said with a smile.
Her chipmunk is a very realistic water colour, and that medium is one of her favourites. The other is chalk pastels.
Julia is willing to share her talents with her friends, too.
“I get to help teach oil pastels in school,” she said. This is going to be cool.
Kellie Barclay said the family has only a limited number of the calendars, mainly because, locally, the special edition publications were quickly snapped up.
She noted, too, that only two artists from Ontario had their work chosen for the bank’s calendar, and only one from eastern Canada. The rest were from the west, and Kellie Barclay wondered if that was because Bateman is from that area.
Julia is planning to enter the contest again this year, mainly because, as she said, the rules do not forbid it. The deadline is Earth Day, April 22.
Bateman made a national Get to Know national tour in November.
