C-M Art Students Plow Over Competition to Win Paint Contest
Talk about plowing over the
competition.
Canon-McMillan art students came
together to help the school earn
overall winner in Washington County
in the Pennsylvania Department of
Transportation’s District 12 “Paint the
Plow” contest, which concluded in early
November.
Paint the Plow is a community outreach
program in which students are invited
to paint a PennDOT snow plow blade
with original artwork to represent their
individual school. In addition to being
visible when in full service during the
winter-weather months, the blades will
be used within the school’s community
to enhance public awareness, promote
safety and foster greater appreciation
of both PennDOT and the school’s art
program.
Some of the requirements included:
• That the school had to incorporate
the themed winter driving safety
message, but could also include
patriotic, state/local or weather
related motifs. This year’s theme is
“Know Before You Go.”
• Students could incorporate their
school’s logo, emblem or mascot
into the design.
PennDOT delivered a clean plow blade,
which is painted yellow or grey and
measures approximately 12-feet long and
four-feet high, to the school.
PennDOT was to deliver the blade
during the first week of school and pick it
up no later than October 17.
However, Canon-McMillan received
its plow far later because of continuing
construction at the high school.
“We had to work under a major time
crunch because of construction and our
lot not being paved,” said Mrs. Ashley
Schepis, visual arts teacher at Canon-
McMillan High School.
“The actual plow was not delivered
until the week prior to them having to
come back to pick it up.”
The plow was painted by Mrs. Schepis’
Concept and Creative Thinking class,
which includes about 20 students.
“They began by brainstorming
individual ideas and then working
together to pull ideas from several of their
sketches together on the white board,”
she said. “Students had five class periods
to prime, sketch, and paint the plow and
worked in cold temperatures and even
misty rain one day.
“A couple of my students were able to
also come down during their study halls
to paint. I must admit, I was extremely
impressed watching how well the
students worked together to create a
design and then how they were able to
delegate jobs to get this plow painted in
such a timely manner.”
All high schools across a (four-) county
region (Fayette, Greene, Washington and
Westmoreland) were invited to promote
winter safety by painting department
plows.
The plows will be mounted to a plow
truck in the areas of the respective school
districts for the upcoming winter season.
“It was real life artwork that people in
the community can see and not just art in
our school hallways,” said Emiley Kushner,
a Canon-McMillan art student. “ It was
ironic to do a snow plow in the rain and
not snow.”
Other Canon-McMillan students,
taught by Mrs. Schepis, described their
participation in the contest as a “fun and
thrilling” experience.
Said Izabella Foutz: “ I had a good
feeling that we would win because we
have some really artistic students in our
class and our school district. It means a
lot to me knowing that our school could
accomplish something like this.”
Emily Snyder added that “it was really
cool to transform an everyday object into
something unique by painting it.”
The contest and project brought
together students who had not
developed relationships in the past.
“Despite the imperfect weather and
accidentally getting paint on my clothing,
it was a good experience,” Brittany
Laberdee said. “I got to work together
with other students — who I don’t usually
talk to — and create one big piece of art
that we all contributed to.”
CANON-MAC
❘
WINTER 2018
49