Pencil Portrait

Amazing 16-year-old artist Shania McDonagh just won the annual Texaco Children’s Art Competition in Ireland with “Coleman,” her impressive hyperrealistic pencil drawing of an old man.

The girl drew the portrait from a photograph she found in the Vanishing Ireland book.  It took McDonagh around one month to create the portrait, which won her the top prize of $2,075 (€1,500). The young artist is the winner of the 16-18-year-old category and of the whole 2014 competition.

Prof. Declan McGonagle, the judging panel’s chairman and director of the National College of Art & Design, says that the girl’s work has positioned her “as one of the most talented artists of her generation, and one whose skill could see her become one of Ireland’s foremost portrait artists of the future.”