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A fictional demo: the library, the young artists and their artwork are invented, and every image was made with AI. About this demo
Make Your Mark
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A library community room wall hung with dozens of colorful children's drawings, paintings and comics on bright mats, under orange, teal and yellow paper bunting, with small clay animals on a table below.

Make Your Mark

The Harlow Public Library's summer art show: 142 pieces by kids ages 5 to 13.

See the art

All summer long, kids from Harlow brought their art to the library: crayon drawings and watercolors, lumpy clay animals, glittery collages and comics with very loud sound effects. Every one of the 142 entries goes on the wall of the Community Room this winter, and every artist wrote a note about their work. Here are 24 of them, in the artists' own words.

This summer by the numbers

  • 142 entries the most the contest has ever had
  • 118 young artists from all over Harlow
  • 5 to 13 years old judged in three age groups
  • 4 kinds of art drawings, clay, collage and comics

Four ways to make your mark

  • Oil pastel drawing on black paper of a night garden with sunflowers, tomatoes, purple flowers and a small grandma.

    Drawings & Paintings

    Crayon, marker, oil pastel and watercolor.

  • Purple clay octopus with worried eyebrows wearing socks on its arms.

    Clay Animals

    A knight frog, a worried octopus and a chicken named Pancake.

  • Paper plate collage of paper fish in torn blue tissue paper with glitter glue.

    Collages

    Paper, leaves, magazines, foil and a lot of glitter.

  • Crayon comic of two kids at a lemonade stand and a bee in a top hat drinking their lemonade.

    Comics

    A setup, a problem and one big BOOM.

Every shape and size

A giraffe on three taped-together sheets, a whole street on a roll of paper, a paper-plate ocean and a comic strip as long as a ruler. Open any one to see it up close.

Opening Night is Friday, November 6

Lemonade, cookies and a ribbon ceremony in the Community Room, 5:30 to 7:30 pm. Free, and everyone's invited.

Plan your visitMeet the winners

Ribbon winners

  • A very tall, narrow marker drawing on three taped sheets of paper: a small giraffe at the bottom whose spotted neck stretches all the way to the top, where it bites a white cloud.

    The Tallest Giraffe in the World

    Priya, age 7 · 2026

    I needed more paper because her neck kept going and going. Ms. Dana gave me tape. She is eating a cloud because all the leaves were too low for her. Her name is Stretch.
  • Watercolor of a dark blue lake at night with a full moon's path of light on the water, pine silhouettes, a small glowing orange tent, and a speckled starry sky.

    Night Swim

    Ava, age 12 · 2026

    This is Harlow Lake at night when we went camping in July. The water was so dark it looked like it went down forever, but the moon made a path across it. I sprinkled salt on the wet paint to make the stars, which is a trick I learned from a library video. I'm most proud of the reflection.
  • Purple clay octopus with worried eyebrows; six arms wear painted clay socks, one wears a real striped baby sock, and one arm is bare.

    The Octopus Who Lost a Sock

    Hazel, age 10 · 2026

    Octopuses have eight arms so they need eight socks. This one only has seven, which is why he looks worried. I made his worried eyebrows with a paperclip. The socks are clay except the striped one, which is a real sock from my baby cousin. I asked first.
  • Collage of a city skyline at night on cardboard: black paper buildings with hundreds of tiny windows cut from colorful magazine photos under a navy sky and a magazine-photo moon.

    City at Night, Window by Window

    Kai, age 13 · 2026

    The library was giving away old magazines, so I took a whole stack. Every window in these buildings is a tiny piece of someone's photo: faces, food, flowers, the ocean. There's one window that's just a dog. I'm not going to tell you where. It took 23 hours, and I kept track.
Spiral-bound wall calendar on a wooden table. The cover reads Make Your Mark 2027 above the Rainbow Fox painting, with Harlow Public Library below.

2027 Make Your Mark Wall Calendar

Take the show home. Thirteen pieces from this summer, one for every month plus the cover, for $18. Every dollar buys art supplies for the Children's Room.

Calendar, prints, cards and stickers

News from the library

  • The 2027 Make Your Mark calendar is here

    October 10, 2026

    Thirteen pieces from the show, one for every month plus the cover. $18 at the circulation desk, and every dollar buys art supplies for the Children's Room.

  • And the ribbons go to…

    October 3, 2026

    A city made of magazine windows, a giraffe on three sheets of paper, an octopus missing a sock: meet this year's ribbon winners.

  • 142 pieces of art, three judges, one very long day

    September 21, 2026

    On Saturday our three judges looked at every one of the 142 entries in this summer's art contest. Here's how they did it, and why it took all day.

All news