BROOKFIELD, Wis.— Sampriti Prabakaran said art is one of her favorite classes. 

What You Need To Know

  • Sampriti Prabakaran is a fourth grader at Burleigh Elementary School

  • Art is one of her favorite classes, as she likes to paint and draw

  • Her artwork won "Artist of the Week" on Artsonia.com, an online student art portfolio site

“You get to draw, and Ms. [Jeanne] Madson gives you these fun art projects, and you can paint," Prabakaran said. 

On Monday, she spent class painting a clay cupcake, blending red, white, orange and pink paint colors. 

“Like, warm colors. That’s what I’m going for right now," Prabakaran said. 

The project was delayed for her and her friends because of COVID-19.

“We were supposed to do this in third grade but since I was virtual, we couldn’t actually do it so we’re doing it in fourth grade," Prabakaran said. 

For another project in March, Prabakaran drew a tiger using a different kind of paper called scratch paper. It's a colored paper with a black film on top that reveals the color when the black is scratched off. 

That project, like all of the other projects her students do, was uploaded to Artsonia by Prabakaran's art teacher.

Artsonia is an online portfolio of student artwork across the country that has more than 90 million pieces of art on display. 

"We start that when they’re in kindergarten and it stays with them until they’re in fifth grade," Madson said. "It's a really useful tool for families too because they can see their student’s artwork, order prints of it, get it on mugs, things like that.”

For the last 10 years, Artsonia has been doing an "Artist of the Week" contest. They randomly select 12 pieces of art in each grade level, and then an online vote determines which artist wins that week. 

Prabakaran won Artist of the Week for the last week of March, getting more than 700 votes. 

“I was just surprised how like, a lot of other people in fourth grade drew the same drawing, they are basically the same things, but they just did different colors, so it’s kind of big news," Prabakaran said. 

Her win brings a $100 award for the school, and Prabakaran gets a $50 gift certificate. 

Madson said she couldn’t be more proud of her.

“We’re very very proud of her and happy any time we can highlight the student’s achievements here," Madson said. 

While Prabakaran said she doesn’t do art for the awards, it does feel good to get recognized for doing something she loves.