Young Artist to Again Put Her Talent to the Test

Danielle Lee’s drawing illustrates what happens when basic safety rules are overlooked: A boy ignores a stop sign and darts into traffic, drops his books and causes a motorist to abruptly hit the brakes while a group of the youth’s peers look on, snickering.

The poster has been chosen to compete in a national contest. Should she win, Danielle’s drawing will be displayed in classrooms across the country as part of the Automobile Club of Southern California’s traffic safety campaign.

As a finalist, the 11-year-old Fullerton girl’s work was recognized last week at a reception held in her fifth-grade classroom. She received $100 worth of art supplies.

But accolades and prizes for Danielle’s artwork are common.

Every year since the second grade, the Fern Drive Elementary School student has won first place honors in a citywide art competition sponsored by the Fullerton Savings and Loan Assn.

Some of Danielle’s most recent honors include winning her school’s mural contest, the American Bar Assn. Orange County art contest and placing third in an anti-smoking campaign competition sponsored by the Orange County Department of Education.

Her teacher, Diane Dombrower, is one of her biggest fans. She enters Danielle in different art contests each month.

“She wins all the time,” Dombrower said of her pupil. “Danielle’s work just really stands out. She’s very, very artistic.”

Danielle, who receives high marks for all her schoolwork, said she knows what she wants to be when she grows up: “An artist or a designer of T-shirts and clothes or pottery,” she said. “It’s something I dream of and something I really want to do.”

The painting that won the Bar Assn. contest had a “Justice for All” theme. It shows a crucifix, arrows piercing the body of Jesus, and a mass of people of different colors gathered around.

Like many of her drawings, it aims to send a messages, Danielle said. Through her traffic safety contest drawing, she said she wants children to realize that “it’s very important to follow traffic rules because they weren’t just made for design. They were made for your safety.”

Danielle takes private art lessons once a week and spends most of her free time drawing. She’ll read a book and get an image in her mind that illustrates what she read and she draws it, her mother, Mee Son Lee, said.

“We are very proud of her,” Danielle’s father, Jacob Hang Bock Lee, said. “She always does her best and her winning pictures give her more self-confidence.”