Ellie Coles, Josie Bieker and Katherine Vandenhuevel, this year’s winners in the Art Club contest, all entered beautiful pieces that will be displayed around school.

Coles painted elaborate drapery, Bieker drew a woman with flowers in her hair and Vandenhuevel graphically designed a nebula.

All of the pieces were very different but creative, beautiful and inspired in their own ways.

This contest itself began in 2013 and is a way to “beautify the environment of the school,” said art teacher Barb Brandtner.

This contest allows students to enter up to three pieces of original art for just five dollars. Their first piece’s entry fee is three dollars and the following two have a fee of one.

With this small admittance fee, each artist has the opportunity to win up to a $100 prize if their piece is the first-place winner. The second-place winner receives $75 and the third-place winner $50.

“All mediums other than photography can be entered,” says Brandtner. Photography was previously accepted before there was a separate photography contest held at NDA.

The prize money is considered a purchasing fee of the art piece itself, and it is then property of NDA so that they may display it as they please.

The school frames the winning pieces so they can be displayed in a proper manner wherever school officials think they will fit.

Bieker, the second-place winner, said inspiration for her piece was the “collage art style that I see on social media and around the art world.”

This contest is judged by two administrators, Brandtner, a student from Art Club and another teacher. Some people decide their favorite based on the technique and the emotional response that the pieces invoke.