The 15-year-old earned a silver medal at the national level of the 2018 Scholastic Art Awards competition for his self-portrait at the beach after winning six gold keys at the regional level for his various submissions this year.

Plus two commissioned portraits he painted, one of two dogs and one of a girl, now hang in the Ohio governor’s office as part of the Top 25 for the 2018 Ohio Governor’s Youth Art Exhibition — that’s out of 13,000 entries.

He’ll travel to Columbus with his family on April 22 for the awards ceremony.

The strength of his gold key entries and silver medal also caught the attention of the Alliance for Young Artists and Writers for a Scholastic Awards Summer (SAS) Scholarship.

This portrait of a girl painted by Grant Menough is in the top 25 for the 2018 Ohio Governor’s Youth Art Exhibition. (Submitted photo)

The Alliance for Young Artists and Writers is a nonprofit group which sponsors the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards each year, bringing gold medalists to New York City for a ceremony, but also providing a limited number of scholarship opportunities to select students.

Menough received an email March 29 offering a summer art residency at the University of Iowa’s Belin-Blank Center from July 8-27, courtesy of an SAS Scholarship covering tuition, fees and housing.

“I’m pretty excited. I’m glad they offered it to me,” Menough said.

The summer residency will include classes and studio time, with lots of electives, included mixed media and 3-D media.

According to a description on the Belin-Blank website, “The Summer Art Residency (SAR) is a unique opportunity to work with world-class faculty in a world-class facility. SAR consists of lectures, open class discussions, workshops, and studio time involving a range of expressive opportunities. Each day includes a drawing class addressing the formal and conceptual bases of drawing and contemporary approaches to effective visual communication. You will also choose from one of the following electives: books & paper, graphic design, printmaking, or 3-dimensional art. Introduction to history, aesthetics, and practice of the fine arts includes demonstrations, workshops, critiques, and a final portfolio.”

This portrait of two dogs painted by Grant Menough is in the top 25 for the 2018 Ohio Governor’s Youth Art Exhibition. (Submitted photo)

Menough said he likes working with oil paint.

“It has more texture and you can get sharper colors,” he said.

For one of his gold key winning portraits, of his grandpa Terry Kornbau, he used just a palette knife to create the image. For another gold key winning portrait, he explored cubism, showing several different views of a face all at once. His commissioned works which will hang in the governor’s office through May were done with oil and brush. A woman contacted him to paint a portrait of her daughter, Anna Goodwin, and a friend of his grandma, Susie Kornbau, asked him to paint a portrait of their two dogs, Gracie and Quaker Swindell. Both were based on photographs.

“He’s just very self-motivated. He picks up on concepts and techniques extremely well,” his teacher, Anthony Martinelli, said, noting that Menough has expressed an interest in carving granite.

Martinelli teaches junior high art and Art I at Salem Junior/Senior High School and said Menough’s skills as an artist are pretty incredible considering he’s just a freshman. His silver medal puts him in the top 1 percent in the country for the Scholastic Art Awards and his works in Columbus are part of a special exhibit. He said the summer program will help him.

“I’m sure he will have a successful career in the arts,” Martinelli said.

Salem has had many successful art students over the years and Salem students did well at the regional level this year. Menough earned a silver key last year at regionals. Next year, he wants to go for the gold medal at the national competition, which would mean a trip to New York City. His love of art started at a young age.

“Since I was like 7 or 8, I was drawing a lot,” Menough said.

He started out with pencils and colored pencils, then around age 10 or 11, his grandparents, Terry and Susie, gave him a gift of summer art lessons from Rachel Theiss of Salem, who had been an art teacher at South Range.

“She introduced him to different mediums. He really blossomed under her,” Susie said.

He studied with Theiss over two summers. He tried acrylics and tried a little bit of sculpting and now uses oils. Besides his artwork, he also runs track and cross country for Salem and likes to work out. He’s been selected to serve as vice president of Key Club next school year. He’s the son of Keith and Laura Menough and the older brother to his two siblings, brother Garrett and sister Paige.

“We’re proud of him. We’re excited for what lies ahead — he has a lot of talent,” Laura said.

mgreier@salemnews.net