Attention young artists in the Irvine Ranch Water District service area – we are inviting students in kindergarten through fifth grade to participate in the annual “Water is Life” poster contest.

In addition, students in grades sixth through 12 have the opportunity to enter the Water Awareness Photography and Digital Arts Contest.

The deadline for kindergarten through fifth grade students to enter their art work is Thursday, March 19. Students participating through the Irvine Unified School District may send their completed posters to Brad Van Patten’s office at the District office on Barranca Parkway.

Contest rules include:

• Use 12 X 18 white paper. Newsprint and larger sizes will not be accepted.
• Students must leave a one inch white border on all four sides.
• Crayons, markers, ink, poster paint, pastels, chalk, water color or cut paper or fabric may be used. Brighter colors photograph best.
• Horizontal (landscape) format only.
• Include a brief water message (be sure to check spelling!)
• Original art work only – no copyrighted material. Be creative!
• Do not put student’s name on the front of the poster.
• Back of poster must have an entry form with student’s information and signed parental release.

Students entering the “Water is Life” poster contest could have their art work published in the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California’s 2016 calendar.

The deadline for sixth through 12^th grade students to enter the photography and digital arts contest is Friday, April 3. Some rules include:

• All files must be submitted in JPG, PNG, or PDF format and should be no larger than 10 megabytes in size.
• Photographs and digital art work should be medium to high resolution (300 dots per inch or higher.)
• Computer-generated art work can be created using Adobe Photoshop/Illustrator, Microsoft Publisher/PowerPoint, or any other graphics program.
• Only original art work will be accepted. Submissions must not contain images created by anyone other than the student.
• Entries must be emailed to digitalarts@mwdoc.com, or post entries to the Municipal Water District of Orange County facebook page. In the email subject line, type: Digital Arts Contest.
• In the body of the email, include: student’s name; grade level; school name; teacher’s name; home phone number and email address.
• Include two-three sentences explaining how the art work/photograph was created.

Please visit our website for contest entry forms and more information.