Embedded Files
Entry Accounts
All entries are made electronically through the national Scholastic Art Awards system.
Both TEACHERS & STUDENTS need to make individual login accounts with Scholastic.
Students will need to make individual accounts using a personal email.
Parent-permission for student participation will be requested through parent email, entered by student.
Minimum age to enter is 13 years old by Dec. 11, 2026.
Teachers
Teachers
Tutorial for making Scholastic accounts.
Students and Art Teachers need an account.
Students
Students
Tutorial for making Scholastic accounts.
Students and Art Teachers need an account.
Entering Work
The Lorain County Region accepts up to 5 individual works per student and 1 senior portfolio per 12th grade student. If a student enters more than the Lorain County Region quota (5 individual works per student, 1 senior portfolio per 12 grade student), then the works/ portfolios over the limit will be disqualified and eliminated prior to jurying.
Senior portfolios consist of 6 works, uploaded individually and designated as portfolio works. Some of the 6 could be scored among the 5 maximum individual entries and some of the 6 could be entries NOT competing among the 5 maximum individual entries.
Works entered should be created/ finished in the 2026 calendar year. Works from second semester last school year and works created over the summer are accepted.
No works over 4 feet in any direction.
No works over 35 lbs.
Online entries are judged with quality photos of the work. (Multiple views of dimensional works.)
It is imperative to upload high quality photos of entries.
high resolution
solid white, black or grey/ neutral background
in focus
smooth clear white lighting
no "hand shadows"
white balanced
cropped at edges of 2-D work
2-D work squared, not keystoned, camera perpendicular to 2-D surface
Category Notes
Photography and Digital Art Have Evolved Into 3 Categories
The Scholastic Art Awards has defined and divided three fields in which students are using these mediums and processes. Please educate yourselves and art students as follows. Make sure your work is entered into the correct category before submitting.
Refer to the official category descriptions and also gallery of National Medalists by-category on the national website.
Photography
Photography
Digital and analog, color and black-and-white are all juried together.
Editing may be used for minor touch-ups/ image correction.
NOTE: Digital collages, distortions, heavy filters of images that the student captured themselves…. go in Experimental Photography category
Experimental Photography
Experimental Photography
For works that a student creates using their own source images that they captured themselves via digital or analog camera and then heavily manipulate.
Heavy manipulation can include: altering the negatives, including text layers, multiple exposures, image warping, etc
Note: Images that are physically printed, then cut-up and reassembled into the final work should be entered into Mixed Media
Digital Drawing, Painting & Collage
Digital Drawing, Painting & Collage
Images created exclusively from the pixels-up using digital tools like ProCreate, Ibis Paint, Krita, Sketchpad, etc.
Images created from heavily collaged found images NOT taken by the participant to produce new images through digital tools.
Note: Using source images taken BY the student, then heavily manipulated (collaged, layers, effects, distortions…) - would be entered into Experimental Photography
Any accepted entries in these photo and digital image categories are to be printed to NO SMALLER THAN 5 x 7" and matted for inclusion in the Lorain County Region exhibition.
The 3-D Categories
The Scholastic Art Awards has defined and divided multiple fields in which students are working with materials to create dimensionality. Please educate yourselves and art students as follows. Make sure your work is entered into the correct category before submitting.
Refer to the official category descriptions and also gallery of National Medalists by-category on the national website.
Sculpture
Sculpture
Any media that is brought into 3-dimensional form through additive, subtractive and shaping techniques are included. This is for work that is viewed in-the-round, not on a wall. Forms like mobiles and dioramas are also sculptures.
Ceramics & Glass
Ceramics & Glass
Fired-ceramic work of any kind - would go to ceramics & glass
Works of glass including stained glass go here.
Unfired synthetic clay work of any kind (oil clay, Sculpey, Fimo, Monster Clay etc) - would go to sculpture or elsewhere, and not “ceramics & glass”
Jewelry or Fashion
Jewelry or Fashion
Wearables like necklaces, bracelets, crowns, rings -would go into jewelry
Wearables like costumes, masks, hats, shoes, - would go in fashion
Mixed Media
Mixed Media
These are wall-mounted works, not free-standing.
Works are made of more than one physical, found or digital medium.
Batik and fiber-based works (quilting, weaving, embroideries) go here.
Drawing and painting materials used in combination on a 2-D surface must be entered in either Drawing or Painting but not in Mixed Media.
Duplicate Projects
The National exhinition program is intended to highlight the variety of student visions and originality.
The Regional Exhibition will accept up to 3 of the visibly-same art project/process assignments.
Please limit entries from any one assignment knowing that a maximum of 3 may be accepted.
Plagiarism
Reference images must be transformed at least 60% from reference.
If any exhibited work is suspected of plagiarism by anyone, it should be reported to Beth and Christen for verification.
Suspected works will be searched through Google Reverse Image Search and TinEye. (As done at ‘National.)
If a suspected work is found to be plagiarized (less than 60% transformed), then the work will be removed and the award revoked.
Advice: Avoid the heart-breaking conversation of a revoked-award with your students. Catch it before it gets entered/ selected for an award. Notify your students that their award can be revoked if they are caught plagiarizing!
Senior Portfolios
Twelfth grade students may enter 1 Senior Portfolio in addition to up to 5 individual works.
The 6 works in the Senior Portfolio must be a series, thematically related. These 6 works don't all have to be from this school year. Works that ARE produced in the calendar-year 2026 are also eligible to be entered for individual jurying.
When your 12th grade student has their 6 works selected for the Senior Portfolio, they enter them one at a time and select the option that they are for “Senior Portfolio”.
Some of those works can be from the Portfolio and others not. When your student is at the point of uploading a Portfolio work that they also want to submit as individual, then they can select both options for that entry.
Fees
Scholastic Art assesses a fee of $15 per individual entry and $40 per senior portfolio.
DO NOT LET THE ENTRY FEE DISCOURAGE YOU--- KEEP READING
National Scholastic offers fee waivers for students who qualify. Qualifying students are typically those who receive free or reduced meals at school, or similar support or need. Students individually self-determine if a $15/entry fee would be a financial hardship for them. (Absolutely no one is collecting IRS 1040 forms to verify this.)
When students get to the “pay” section for their entries, they should see that the fee is either "waived" or check “pay by check”---- which is really a great big check from the Stocker Foundation on behalf of the whole region.
Although all remaining entries are generously paid for by the Stocker Foundation, if a student qualifies for a fee waiver, then they should select that option to more accurately reflect the demographic of our area for our funder and to decrease our "ask" of the Stocker Foundation.
BOTTOM LINE--- YOUR STUDENTS PAY NOTHING, PERIOD
No student entering, either with or without financial need, will be asked for a single penny.
5 individual entries per student
1 portfolio entry per senior
If a student enters more than the Lorain County Region quota (5 individual works per student, 1 senior portfolio per 12 grade student), then the works/ portfolios over the limit will be disqualified and eliminated prior to jurying.
Page updated
Report abuse