One of our Year 9 Students and an art enthusiast has received high praise for her Manga artwork from a professional artist and illustrator.
Student, Monika Kwak, was chosen as the winner of a comic storyboard competition launched at the Academy before the Easter school holidays.
Monika’s comic strip was chosen as the winning entry by artist and illustrator Anna Fitzpatrick, who visited the school last term during KSA’s Book Week.
She had designed her storyboard on the computer and she was awarded a selection of original prints drawn by Anna Fitzpatrick as a prize for her impressive artwork.
Miss Fitzpatrick looked through all the students’ entries and said: “It was a really hard decision to make. All the students had done some really amazing work, far better than I could have done at their age. My favourite is Monika's, I love the surreal and spacey atmosphere and it's packed with drama! Really like her use of colours too.”
She added: “All the entries brought something different to the table, but also made it the hardest decision ever.”
Monika said: “I was quite hopeful that I would win and I was happy to be chosen to win the prizes. I enjoy art and I would like to do something in the future with my artwork as a career. I am also taking GCSE art. I created the story for the characters as I went along and to showcase them in action to demonstrate my drawing skills.”
Monika added she has had the original prints, she won, framed already.
All the students' entries to the competition were inspired by the art workshop run by Miss Fitzpatrick at the school, who demonstrated to groups of students the best techniques to use when drawing Manga characters for comic stories and cartoons.

Monika pictured above with her prize.

Below: part of Monika's winning comic strip design.