Farmington artist places second in Cricket League competition

FARMINGTON – A fourth grader at Cascade Brook School was recently awarded second prize in the 10-and-under category in an art competition through Cricket Magazine for her drawing “The Winter Birches.”

The 10-year-old artist, Maya Kellett, has been sketching, painting, sculpting and creatively writing ever since she can remember. Aside from art class at school (which is her second favorite class, after library), Kellett commits time in her busy schedule to participate in small group lessons with a neighbor up the road.

Whether she is sketching trees, sculpting a self portrait or crafting a turtle out of papier-mâché, Kellett always makes time for reading.

“I have like, 100 Cricket magazines,” Kellett said.

The award-winning magazine provides children access to high-quality literature and illustrations. Each issue runs a different competition for readers, sometimes art based and other times writing, each one with a prompt. November’s issue asked contestants to submit a piece of art with the theme of “Magical Telescope.”

“I was really impressed with how Maya just decided to submit and did it all on her own,” Maya’s mother, Nicole Kellett said.

Although Kellett has submitted to competitions in the past, this was the first art focused one that she has participated in. Kellett said she draw lots of her inspiration from being outside and especially loves drawing trees.

“I get a lot of inspiration from people. I like studying them and watching what they do,” she said.

As for the drawing of the birch trees, Kellett had a specific image in mind.

“I sort of got the idea from the fall. We have, like a line of trees, where a train track went through I think. It’s really pretty,” she said.