16-Year-Old Artist Wins The National Art Competition With Her Impressive Hyper-Realistic Pencil Drawing

16-Year-Old artist Shania McDonagh has just won the top prize at the annual Texaco Children’s Art Competition for her sensational pencil portrait. The new Irish star artist has been drawing since she was 12 years old and has stunned the world with "Coleman," her hyper-realistic pencil portrait of an elderly man.

According to Prof. Declan McGonagle, the judging panel's chairman and director of the National College of Art & Design, her work has positioned her “as one of the most talented artists of her generation, and one whose skill could see her become one of Ireland’s foremost portrait artists of the future.”

McDonagh, the winner of the whole competition as well as the 16-18 year old category, took about one month to draw the portrait of a man whose photograph she found in the Vanishing Ireland book. She will receive her €1,500 first prize at the Royal Hospital Kilmainham ceremony next month.