FARMINGTON — Claire Donaghue put some bird seed in a feeder, took a camera inside and hid by the window.

She wanted to get a photo of a bird in a good pose or a really unique bird.

“Then a woodpecker came,” she said.

Donaghue, of Wilton, took a photo capturing the detail of the downy woodpecker on a tree in a winter scene.

The Mt. Blue High School senior takes a commercial arts course through the Foster Career and Technical Education Center, which are both part of the Mt. Blue Campus in Farmington.

Donaghue’s artwork was one of 22 pieces from student artists representing a dozen schools chosen in a Maine Learning Technology Initiative contest. The art will appear in 2014-15 as screen savers on teacher and student laptops provided through the initiative. Electronic devices that do not have a screen saver option will include the images as a download to use as backgrounds.

More than 250 Maine students submitted artwork for the contest, according to a Department of Education press release. The students who had their work selected can attend the MLTI Student Conference on May 22 on the campus of the University of Maine in Orono.

Donaghue said her English teacher, Dan Ryder, told her about the contest and she decided enter.

She remembered that she had taken the photo. Photography is part of the commercial arts program.

Taking the photo through a window, she touched it up, including removing smudges on the window using Photoshop.

By the time the bird arrived, she didn’t want to go outside to take the photo and risk scaring it away.

“I’m really into art,” she said.

She is going to college for art either at Maine College of Art or Minneapolis College of Art.

“Usually I do illustrations, but photography is pretty cool,” Donaghue said. “I’ve also always done art since I was 2. That is the age where some kids stop doing art. I just kept doing it. It’s soothing and it’s fun.’

dperry@sunjournal.com

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