Eighteen pieces of campus art were judged at the ACSI Art Festival at Crossroads Christian School in Morgan Hill, April 24. While all submitted at pieces received either good, excellent or superior awards, John Carreon, ’09, won Best of Show out of the festival’s 160 entries.

Even though this is Carreon’s second year in art, he has drawn in his free time for years.

“I was looking through different things in (Sharon) Scharf’s class,” Carreon said. “I found a newspaper article from the 80s with a picture of the cowboy and I wanted to use it in my artwork. Then, she told me she had been saving it for someone to use in an art festival.”

It took Carreon two weeks in class to complete the cowboy scratchboard, because he needed to experiment with various techniques.

“I pick certain artworks to send into the festival based on the quality of each piece,” Scharf said. “It truly was a phenomenal piece that John put so much time into. He has so much patience and talent.”

Scharf also said Carreon’s scratchboard will be entered in the Big Fresno Fair in the fall.

“John used a new product called ‘Scratchbord,'” Scharf said. “I start students out on a type of scratchboard which is a heavy piece of paper with a clay coating and then painted with black ink. ‘Scratchbord’ is actually a piece of masonite which as been treated with the clay and black ink. I will be ordering a few pieces for advanced scratchboard students such as John for next year. We can add watercolor very successfully to ‘Scratchbord’ after the image has been scratched out. John inspired me to purchase a book on the subject last summer.”

A scratchboard is a clay-coated board inked over with black ink. It is used to scratch out a white image leaving the desired impression.

“We use a x-acto knife to scratch out the image,” Scharf said. “John, however, experimented with a masonite board for his cowboy. John has the ability to see a photograph or picture, know that it is a good subject for the medium, and be able to see what he needs to do to turn it into a scratchboard. This is a gift the Lord has given him.”

Besides Carreon, senior Stephen Willems won a superior award for his scratchboard tiger.

“It was really cool winning because I wasn’t even expecting it,” Willems said. “I just walked into second period and I heard it in the announcements. I really think that John deserved to win the Best of Show because his cowboy was awesome. His use of highlights and shadowing is awesome.”

Art seems to hold value in Carreon’s life, however, the majority of his leisure time is spent away from art.

“I like to hang out with my friends and play paintball with them too,” Carreon said. “Every once in a while I play video games.” Carreon went on to say that during the summer he enjoys taking his jet-skis to one of the local lakes with his family.

Even though Carreon seems to excel in scratchboard art, he also has an interest in other types of art.

“Other than scratchboard I also like painting shoes,” Carreon said. “I will even wear the shoes I paint to school. If I have a chance to have a career in art, I will definitely take it. I will always do art as a hobby but I don?t know if I will necessarily be able to make a career out of it.”

Carreon is already looking towards next year. He will work on two pieces of artwork for the ACSI Art Festival, another piece for the Radavich Congressional Art Exhibit, and a third for the Old West Show, which is sponsored by the Clovis Art Guild during the week leading up to the Clovis Rodeo.