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Sarah Hinchman earns top art awards at state fair
After coming away with no recognition for her artwork last year, it was a surprise for South Putnam’s Sarah Hinchman to win awards at the Indiana State Fair this year.
While two of the four pieces she submitted were recognized as honorable mentions, both a digital portrait and a pen-and-pencil drawing earned second-place honors out of 30-or-so entries in the Youth Arts Division.
Sarah, 14, the daughter of Gregg and Jit Hinchman, entered as an eighth-grader in the seventh- to-ninth-grade pen-and-pencil section of the division, while the computer/digital entrants extended from seventh- to-12th grade.
“After last year, I didn’t want to compete, ‘cause I was just like, ‘I have no chance,’” Sarah said. “I saw that there were a lot of really good artists there, but I also realized that I had improved.”
The second-place pen-and-pencil drawing, which depicts a woman with green eyes, was inspired by the song “American Money” by Børns, while her second-place digital piece is vintage-inspired. They took her about nine and one-and-a-half hours to complete, respectively.
“I guess I just really love doing realism,” Sarah said about the style of the pen-and-pencil drawings. The digital image was an idea for a T-shirt.
Meanwhile, with her pen-and-pencil honorable mentions, a drawing which depicts two elk took her about eight hours. However, she started, put away and then finished the other one, which depicts a singer.
“I did the sketch and I just kinda put it away. I didn’t want to do it, I procrastinated,” Sarah said about the drawing of the singer. She started it last September and did not like how it was going. But she felt compelled to finish it after she found it incomplete two months later.
While she has always liked drawing, Sarah said she did not start taking it seriously until three years ago. In the past year, she realized that art in general can sometimes be a love-hate relationship.
Sarah acknowledged that drawing can be hard starting out, and that it can be discouraging to see other more experienced artists’ work. She shared that she will often not like her pieces initially, but that they’re actually “not that bad” after not seeing them for a month.
For her, with art being subjective, it can be hard to improve if one does not love working on theirs. She said that an aspiring artist has to tune that out and learn from those more experienced artists.
Recently enrolled as a freshman at South Putnam High School, Sarah is effectively self-taught, having not taken any classes outside of school. However, she has taken cues from artists and their channels on YouTube, including Ergo Josh and Sinix Design.
“When I was first starting, it was definitely just technical skill,” Sarah said about her learning and improving. “But now, it’s just a lot of good inspiration to see something different that people are doing.”
Two of Sarah’s pen-and-pencil drawings and the digital work, as well as three other pieces, were featured at the Art Walk at DePauw University in the spring. She is finishing up a website through which she wants to sell her art. She has also done a few commissions.
Overall composition, originality and technical skill are the most crucial elements to Sarah. This is one’s art being unique as a package, not merely copying another theme or design and showing an ability to draw different aspects well.
“Art, I believe, is a creative expression of something,” Sarah said. “It could be an emotion, it could be a thought, an idea. It can be something seen, something that you can’t explain. I feel like it captures reality to the eye of the artist.”
Sarah related that art can be a coping mechanism. It can also be something someone can be proud of putting the effort into, and perhaps encouragement to keep at it.