8-year-old Mount Dora resident Ariadne Garcia has always loved to read and draw. In July, while reading a magazine, she saw a contest that asked readers to create a drawing depicting a busy city and decided to enter a drawing of her own.
Last month, Garcia’s artwork, “Green Bug City Park,” was selected to be published in the Spider’s Corner section of Spider Magazine’s November/December edition.
“When I found out I won, I was jumping up and down with joy and shouting hooray all over the house,” Garcia said.
The subscription to Spider Magazine was a gift from Garcia’s grandmother, who wanted to encourage her granddaughter’s passions. The magazine offered a variety of activities that she believed would satisfy Garcia’s artistic curiosity.
Spider, which is part of Cricket Media, is a magazine for readers ages six to nine years old. It aims to get kids excited about reading through a variety of material, including fiction, nonfiction, poems and comics, as well as other activities and illustrations.
The magazine’s Spider’s Corner section features contests related to topics within the issue and asks readers to submit entries in different categories, such as writing or visual arts.
“Ariadne’s original point of view made her work stand out,” said the Spider Creative Team. “Almost all other ‘Busy City’ entries included cars or other vehicles and/or crowded high-rise buildings. Ariadne pictured a city park busy with bugs and other animals in her artwork titled ‘Green Bug City Park.’”
Garcia’s creative abilities go beyond drawing. She says she also loves to dance, write her own songs and build 3-D objects out of paper. Additionally, she finds time to work on what she hopes will become an animated television show, as well as building her Roblox YouTube channel. Soon, she will also be working on learning to code for the Roblox games she showcases on her YouTube channel.
“We admire how most children are eager and confident to tackle many themes, styles and mediums,” said the Spider Creative Team. “Children’s artwork is often less restrained or inhibited than the artwork of teens and adults.”
Garcia’s father, Jorge Garcia, said he encourages his daughter’s creativity and offers her support whenever she needs it.
“I love the way the magazine is formatted and the way they are encouraging young readers to be creative in their learning experience,” Jorge Garcia said. “They are constantly having different types of contests in the magazine, so I’m sure another creation and submission is on the near horizon.”
Now that Garcia’s artwork has been published, she has found even more motivation to keep working on her artistic talents and hopes to help inspire other kids to do the same.
“I want kids to know how fun art can be and how great it is to keep trying until you succeed,” said Garcia.
To learn more about Spider magazine and Cricket Media visit https://cricketmedia.com.