Arts & Culture
Young Richmond artist wins contest
By Hannah Scott, Local Journalism Initiative reporter
Published 1:54 PST, Fri February 11, 2022
Last Updated: 3:57 PDT, Tue March 29, 2022
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Lukas Ma, a 12-year-old Richmond artist, was recently named a winner of FORED BC Society’s National Forest Week contest for youth.
Established in 1925, FORED BC Society provides sustainability education, resources and consulting to B.C. communities and First Nations. This year’s contest theme was “Our forests—continually giving.” Ma’s win includes a cash prize.
“My mom was a follower of FORED BC on Facebook and she saw this contest on one of the pages,” explains Ma.
The deer piece was something Ma worked on just for fun, rather than for an assignment. It took him around three to four hours to finish.
“I’ve seen many photos where there’s a main (image) and inside there’s different types of photos,” he says of his inspiration. “A deer felt like something that could represent a forest well, and also the antlers of the deer were like branches.”
For the piece, Ma used paint for the background, fineliner for the drawing, and some pencil crayon. While Ma had originally planned to submit a digital art piece, he ended up going with the drawing it was based on.
Ma is also inspired by other art that he sees online. He feels happy and proud to have been named a contest winner.
His art teacher Color Li, who teaches at Canada X Academy of Art and Design, says the win is “a huge milestone in (Ma’s) life.”
“This competition provided him (with) great motivation to continue his art-related careers in the future,” adds Li.