Meet the winners of Outschool's first Visual Arts Showcase

More than 1,200 kids submitted their artwork. Six became finalists. And on April 25, the Outschool community came together live to celebrate all of them — and crown the first-ever Visual Arts Showcase grand prize winners.

What the showcase was about

The Visual Arts Showcase invited kids ages 6–18 to submit original artwork across two categories: physical art (drawing, painting, illustration, and mixed media) and digital art (digital illustration and anime). Submissions were judged across three age groups — 6–9, 10–13, and 14–18 — producing six finalists, one per age group per category.

Judging covered four areas: technique and craftsmanship, composition and design, creativity and originality, and expression — whether the artwork clearly communicated a mood, emotion, or story.

Meet the judges

The showcase was judged by three art teachers who teach on Outschool:

Christopher Chien teaches anime drawing classes and is part of the Young Illustrator Studio on Outschool. He pushes his students to draw the full figure, not just the face — building the fundamentals that stick.

Char Daignault teaches drawing, painting, mixed media, fashion design, and crochet. She started on Outschool through fashion illustration and brings real-world industry experience to every class she teaches.

Bear Howe is a children's illustrator and graphic design professional from Ontario, Canada. Bear started in journalism and editorial before sliding back into art — and now runs workshops that pair nature journaling with scientific observation.

Together, they reviewed all 1,200+ submissions.

The finalists: physical art

Lauren, ages 6–9

Lauren drew her pet iguana, Lizzie — studying the shape of Lizzie's head, body, tail, and claws, then bringing her to life on dark paper with colored pencils and white pencil highlights. The dark paper was her own choice, and it paid off.

"Your use of the brown paper was such a good idea for this," Bear told her. "I could tell that you were doing a study... the level of commitment that I see in this piece." Char agreed: "I can feel Lizzie is just frozen in time, about to hang out for the rest of the day."

Parnia W., ages 10–13

Parnia's piece, Afternoon with a Gentle Heart, was a mixed media work using watercolor, gouache, and colored pencil. It came from a real memory: a 40-minute drive to her brother's homeschool biology class, where a teacher kept farm animals and let kids feed baby goats. Parnia used foreshortening — making figures appear to tilt toward the viewer — to pull us into that afternoon with her.

"When I saw it, I was like, what? Whoa," Char said. "It was very brave in your composition." Bear called out how Parnia balanced maximum detail in the foreground against soft, silhouetted figures in the background. "Even though there's a lot to look at, it feels easy to look at."

Alec T., ages 14–18

Alec is an autistic teen artist from Ontario, Canada. His piece, Peaceful Pockets, is a gouache painting showing a cutaway view of a fox curled in its den during a deep Canadian winter. He made a companion piece imagining the rabbits in their dens through the same cold — both safe in their own pockets.

Chris called out the impressionistic brushwork: "More of a Monet or Van Gogh style." He also noted what made the composition unusual: the cutaway view can't be photographed — it had to come entirely from Alec's imagination.

Char, a fellow Canadian, put it simply: "You encapsulated how I felt. The way you have the light shining through the trees with the colors — pure magic. Children's books need you."

The finalists: digital art

Nori, ages 6–9

Nori created a digital piece featuring a mermaid named Kiku — a character she'd invented — surrounded by fish and holding a bubble. The piece started from Nori's childhood wish to be a mermaid, a trip to Japan where she fed fish in a lake, and the simple delight of trying to hold a soap bubble in your bare hands.

Chris was struck by the technical level: "She was head and shoulders above a lot of the others. The anatomy is great, the costume design is cool — and she's one of the few finalists who used strong directional lighting, which is something you typically see in art schools." Bear echoed it: "She's done a great job capturing how light moves through water."

Aisha B., ages 10–13

Aisha, from Allen, Texas, submitted Garden of Deceptions — a digital work showing a marionette in a garden surrounded by flowers, doves, and musical notes. The environment looks calm and cheerful, but the piece is about control, hopelessness, and the fragile persistence of hope. Cool blues and grays dominate; warm pinks and reds push through. The marionette herself is purple — still hopeful, even as the light above fades.

"Even without reading the description, you can tell what's going on," Chris said. He loved that Aisha was "unapologetically digital" — using color dodge, glow tools, and directional brushwork that felt cinematic. Bear noted how the analogous color palette — blues and purples sitting next to each other on the color wheel — made the glowing color feel contained and controlled, matching the piece's theme exactly.

Addie, ages 14–18

Addie found a black-and-white photo on Pinterest and decided to bring the woman in it to life — not realistically, but with color and a graphic style she doesn't usually work in. She used Procreate, layering flat colors, shadows, halftones, semitones, and hatching to give the piece texture and movement.

Chris compared the result to the animation style in Into the Spider-Verse — digital, but expressive. Char, who has taught Addie for several years, admitted she didn't recognize her work at first. "This is totally different than Addie's style. You really went out of your comfort zone — and there was no stone left unturned."

The winners

Grand prize — physical art: Parnia W.

Afternoon with a Gentle Heart took the top prize in the physical art category. Char, who announced the winner, said the decision was "so hard" — but Parnia's foreshortening, her mixed media choices, and the way she invited the viewer into her afternoon made her piece stand apart.

Grand prize — digital art: Aisha B.

Garden of Deceptions won the digital category. Chris said the judges chose Aisha because "the technique, the storytelling, and the creativity were all top notch."

Showcase favorite: Mehar T., ages 6–9

The Showcase Favorite is decided not by judges but by the Outschool community — public vote. This year, that honor went to Mehar T. for a detailed drawing of an elk in a mountain landscape. Bear described an asymmetrical mountain backdrop that draws the eye back to the elk, strong grounding in the foreground, and real warmth in the composition. The community agreed.

What the grand prize winners take home

Both grand prize winners receive a $500 Outschool gift card, a $500 Amazon gift card, and one year of free Outschool classes. Their artwork will also appear on a digital billboard in Times Square from May 11 through 17 — if you're in New York, keep an eye out.

A note on what 1,200 submissions actually means

More than 1,200 kids chose to make something, put it out into the world, and let someone give them feedback. That's not a small thing. The judges' words throughout the showcase showed what good teaching looks like: specific, generous, and always pointing toward what the kid was already doing right.

"Art gives not only a voice, but also an anchor for kids who might need it," Char said during the Q&A. That came through in every finalist piece — in an iguana on dark paper, in a fox curled in a winter den, in a marionette who still has a little hope left.

What's next

The next Outschool showcase is coming summer of 2026. If your kid has been thinking about trying an art class — or if the work above gave you ideas — you can browse arts and crafts classes for kids and find something that matches what lights them up.