Dunedin Student Recognized On International Student Art Website

DUNEDIN, FL — San Jose Elementary student Charlee Bingham is the winner of Artsonia’s Artist of the Week contest, a voting competition held on Artsonia.com, the largest online student art museum in the world exhibiting more than 65 million pieces of student art.

Bingham recently received more than a thousand online votes for this winning piece of art.

“I feel so excited and happy and surprised,” Bingham said.

Bingham’s teacher Barbara Peters is one of thousands of art teachers from more than 100 countries around the world who use Artsonia to showcase their student art, crowdsource lesson plans and help fund raise for their classrooms.

Artsonia lets family and friends of student artists create and purchase organic keepsakes from the student art, and then gives back 20 percent of all revenue to the local art classroom.

“It is so gratifying to have students recognized for their art achievements,” Peters said. “We put art in frames in our school hallways, have art on our bulletin boards, and we participate in our county's art exhibits. I try to make sure that every child is proud of their work and I think that Artsonia is a wonderful way for them and their parents to understand what is happening in the art classroom.”

Artsonia developed Artist of the Week 10 years ago as a way to encourage teachers to submit student artwork and engage the school and community to vote on and recognize students for their achievements.

Every week, Artsonia selects 12 random submissions in four age groups from artwork submitted the previous week. Voting is then open to the public for several days before the winner is announced.

Blick Art Materials donates a $100 gift certificate to the winning school and a $50 gift certificate to the student artist.

“Our mission at Artsonia is to bring communities together to celebrate children's artistic expressions,” said Jim Meyers, CEO and co-founder of the company. “Artist of the week is a perfect way to get local schools, families and friends involved in the process of creating, recognizing and cherishing student art.”