OC’s Soundings visual and literary arts journal announces winners of the “Summer Creations” contest

Ashlyn Karguth received first place with her painting of the “Downton Abbey” character Sybil.

Soundings, a student-run visual and literary arts journal on Oklahoma Christian University’s campus, hosts a number of small contests before compiling numerous submissions into a yearly journal.

Recently, the Soundings editors announced winners of their “Summer Creations” contest, the first contest of the 2021-2022 school year. Each submission, whether art or writing, was judged anonymously by the Soundings staff.

Samantha Nelson, the public relations and events director for Soundings, celebrated the innovation of the artists whose work was submitted.

“The pieces we judged were wonderfully creative and skillful. Some of them truly took my breath away,” Nelson said. “The short stories were fun to read, as it's hard to cram in everything you want in such a short word count, so you end up with a delightfully rich story. Overall, it was a great contest.”

This semester, the judges received many skillful submissions, resulting in first-, second- and third-place winners along with five honorable mentions.

Ashlyn Karguth, a freshman English major, won first place in the contest with her piece “Sybil, A Portrait,” a rendition of the youngest Crawley daughter from “Downton Abbey.” Jessica Brown Findlay portrayed Sybil from the same TV series.

Sybil, A Portrait, by Ashlyn Karguth

After expressing her surprise and gratitude at winning the contest, Karguth went into detail on the creation of the portrait.

“I started drawing Sybil by taking a reference photo and tracing the basic proportions,” Karguth said. “[Afterward], I began to sketch out my details. That’s definitely the most difficult part of my process, but the most tedious is the blending and attention to detail. I started doing detail work and color on the parts I dreaded first, mainly her hand. After that, it was fairly smooth going. Overall, the process took about a month.”

For more information about the “Summer Creations” contest and to see the other finalists and honorable mentions, click here. 

For more information about Soundings, and to keep up with other contests, click here. 

To see the second- and third-place winners, and the rest of the honorable mentions, please click here.