I only got to take one art class in middle school - one "quarter" (half-semester) in 6th grade - because I was taking Choir and French, both of which were full-year electives, and because art was one of the "rotation" electives that you couldn't specifically choose.
I was so frustrated being at the mercy of the computer "letting" me take art, that when I got to high school I was determined to take more art classes. Freshman year, I specifically didn't take the required 9th grade gym and health courses (with the idea that I would make them up over the summer, or in future years) and took a full year of art - a semester of "Intro" and a semester of "Drawing & Sketching." I was one of the only ninth graders in the "Drawing & Sketching" class (but the following year I was also the only tenth grader in ninth grade Gym/Health, so it was a trade-off).
The "Drawing & Sketching" class was where I was first introduced to colored pencil as a legitimate art form. Obviously I'd used colored pencil before, as a child, but this was different. For one thing, my art teacher had us drawing on mat board instead of paper, so we could smooth and blend the colors easier. For another, she had a set of fancy Prismacolor colored pencils at every desk - and encouraged us to buy our own personal sets. She bought them in bulk from Dick Blick. I think it was a 48-pencil set that I bought from her for something like $30. It was the most I'd ever seen colored pencils go for before. But my parents were generous and gave me the money.
She set up a still life for us to draw. There was blue drapery, some animal skulls, and a vase of flowers. I wasn't big into the skulls, but I did love the colored pencils. When we had to choose what to do for a final project at the end of the semester, I did another colored pencil drawing. I set up a still life at home with my softball mitt, a small vase of flowers, and a platform flip-flop (it was the early 2000s, ok?).
(I wanted to find these to include pictures of in this post, but I don't know where they've gone. Ah well. If I find them in the future, I'll come back and edit them in later.)
I didn't get a chance to fit art into my schedule sophomore year (see comments about Gym/Health, above), but I did a semester of "Painting" my junior year. That was my least favorite art class - because I did not like the teacher. He definitely played favorites, and I wasn't one of them. He gave me C's on paintings - in an Intro Painting class - even though I was one of the few in the class who actually worked all hour, every day. (Everyone else at my table just talked about the concerts they went to over the weekend and they drugs they did.) He also spent most of every class working on giant canvases of his own work and completely ignoring us. It was not great.
But I was not deterred! Senior year I did a whole year of art - Advanced Placement Studio. It was perhaps a little too independent for me - I had trouble coming up with ideas of what to do, and felt "behind" the other 10 students in the class, who had made art more of a priority in previous years than I had and therefore had more of a "focus" with one particular style or medium they preferred. (I was taking two other APs senior year - Calc BC and French - and had taken 3 APs as a junior - Calc AB, World History, and English Lit - so I was pretty busy with other stuff that my art classmates were not.) But when our teacher gave us a project to do as a class, it was great!
My freshman year art teacher had retired, and Mr. Martin was in her old room. I don't know if it was something about that room that called for colored pencil still lifes on black mat board, or if it was just a similar teaching style the two shared after working next to each other for several years, but there were two projects we did in AP art that were very reminiscent of the ones I'd loved doing in "Drawing & Sketching."
I busted out my old Prismacolor set (which I don't think I'd used much ad interim, so I'm sure my parents were glad to see me putting their purchase to good use again).
"Still Life with Copper Kettle" -
This 10"x12" drawing is for sale at my Etsy store. It comes with a 16"x18" black mat (with white core).
"Still Life with Drum Set" -
This 10"x12" colored pencil drawing is also for sale at my Etsy store - and also comes with a 16"x18" black mat (with white core).
Both of these were done on black mat board - but the first was done on smooth mat board, while the second was done on textured mat board (which you can see coming through the colored pencil in the detail images).
Our teacher set up the first still life. We all had so much fun with it (I wasn't the only one who liked colored pencils, I guess), that as a class we chose to do a second one. We each brought in an item from home and set up our own still life. I brought in the little artist's mannequin. Others brought in the stuffed dog, the sunglasses, and the bongo set. I think the green watering can and the plaid blanket were props in the art room already.
Once again, I was enjoying myself so much with the colored pencils that I set up my own still life at home to make another on my own time.
"Candy Still Life" -
This drawing is also for sale on Etsy! It is 10"x13" in size with a 14.5" x 16" black mat (with yellow core).
I loved the still lifes we did in class, but I was using up my white and other light colored pencils and wanted a still life with bright, vibrant colors to work with.
This was done on paper (I didn't have mat board to use at home), but with the same Prismacolor colored pencils. The blue antique crystal candy dish was from my grandma's house (it was apparently my great aunt Dorothy's mother-in-law's dish from the 1800s). I stuffed it with individually-wrapped Life Savers candies. The gumball dispenser spent a while in my bedroom growing up - but I was never much of a gum-chewer (no one in my family is), and once I started having TMJ (jaw problems) and braces, the dispenser ended up in the basement, where my dad kept peanuts or M&Ms in it. (Those are M&Ms pictured in the drawing.)
I also drew small black-mat-board colored pencil drawings for each of my friends as holiday presents that December. I spent hours on those gifts. I was really into the whole colored pencil thing.
And then I went to college and chose watercolor as my concentration. I took several drawing classes, too, but the focus there was more on charcoal or pastels (which are so messy). So it was awhile before I got back into colored pencil. I do love it though (which a quick cursory look at my Etsy shop will tell you), and I've been making a lot of smaller 5"x7" colored pencil drawings lately.
I love working with black backgrounds because it makes you think backwards - instead of adding pencil to make the darker areas darker, you preserve the darks with the black paper (or black mat board) and then use the pencils to make the lighter areas lighter. Also - I "cut my teeth" on colored pencil on black mat board in high school, so it just seems easier to me to start with a dark background instead of white paper, even if it is "backwards." :)
I was so frustrated being at the mercy of the computer "letting" me take art, that when I got to high school I was determined to take more art classes. Freshman year, I specifically didn't take the required 9th grade gym and health courses (with the idea that I would make them up over the summer, or in future years) and took a full year of art - a semester of "Intro" and a semester of "Drawing & Sketching." I was one of the only ninth graders in the "Drawing & Sketching" class (but the following year I was also the only tenth grader in ninth grade Gym/Health, so it was a trade-off).
The "Drawing & Sketching" class was where I was first introduced to colored pencil as a legitimate art form. Obviously I'd used colored pencil before, as a child, but this was different. For one thing, my art teacher had us drawing on mat board instead of paper, so we could smooth and blend the colors easier. For another, she had a set of fancy Prismacolor colored pencils at every desk - and encouraged us to buy our own personal sets. She bought them in bulk from Dick Blick. I think it was a 48-pencil set that I bought from her for something like $30. It was the most I'd ever seen colored pencils go for before. But my parents were generous and gave me the money.
She set up a still life for us to draw. There was blue drapery, some animal skulls, and a vase of flowers. I wasn't big into the skulls, but I did love the colored pencils. When we had to choose what to do for a final project at the end of the semester, I did another colored pencil drawing. I set up a still life at home with my softball mitt, a small vase of flowers, and a platform flip-flop (it was the early 2000s, ok?).
(I wanted to find these to include pictures of in this post, but I don't know where they've gone. Ah well. If I find them in the future, I'll come back and edit them in later.)
I didn't get a chance to fit art into my schedule sophomore year (see comments about Gym/Health, above), but I did a semester of "Painting" my junior year. That was my least favorite art class - because I did not like the teacher. He definitely played favorites, and I wasn't one of them. He gave me C's on paintings - in an Intro Painting class - even though I was one of the few in the class who actually worked all hour, every day. (Everyone else at my table just talked about the concerts they went to over the weekend and they drugs they did.) He also spent most of every class working on giant canvases of his own work and completely ignoring us. It was not great.
But I was not deterred! Senior year I did a whole year of art - Advanced Placement Studio. It was perhaps a little too independent for me - I had trouble coming up with ideas of what to do, and felt "behind" the other 10 students in the class, who had made art more of a priority in previous years than I had and therefore had more of a "focus" with one particular style or medium they preferred. (I was taking two other APs senior year - Calc BC and French - and had taken 3 APs as a junior - Calc AB, World History, and English Lit - so I was pretty busy with other stuff that my art classmates were not.) But when our teacher gave us a project to do as a class, it was great!
My freshman year art teacher had retired, and Mr. Martin was in her old room. I don't know if it was something about that room that called for colored pencil still lifes on black mat board, or if it was just a similar teaching style the two shared after working next to each other for several years, but there were two projects we did in AP art that were very reminiscent of the ones I'd loved doing in "Drawing & Sketching."
I busted out my old Prismacolor set (which I don't think I'd used much ad interim, so I'm sure my parents were glad to see me putting their purchase to good use again).
"Still Life with Copper Kettle" -
This 10"x12" drawing is for sale at my Etsy store. It comes with a 16"x18" black mat (with white core).
"Still Life with Drum Set" -
This 10"x12" colored pencil drawing is also for sale at my Etsy store - and also comes with a 16"x18" black mat (with white core).
Both of these were done on black mat board - but the first was done on smooth mat board, while the second was done on textured mat board (which you can see coming through the colored pencil in the detail images).
Our teacher set up the first still life. We all had so much fun with it (I wasn't the only one who liked colored pencils, I guess), that as a class we chose to do a second one. We each brought in an item from home and set up our own still life. I brought in the little artist's mannequin. Others brought in the stuffed dog, the sunglasses, and the bongo set. I think the green watering can and the plaid blanket were props in the art room already.
Once again, I was enjoying myself so much with the colored pencils that I set up my own still life at home to make another on my own time.
"Candy Still Life" -
This drawing is also for sale on Etsy! It is 10"x13" in size with a 14.5" x 16" black mat (with yellow core).
I loved the still lifes we did in class, but I was using up my white and other light colored pencils and wanted a still life with bright, vibrant colors to work with.
This was done on paper (I didn't have mat board to use at home), but with the same Prismacolor colored pencils. The blue antique crystal candy dish was from my grandma's house (it was apparently my great aunt Dorothy's mother-in-law's dish from the 1800s). I stuffed it with individually-wrapped Life Savers candies. The gumball dispenser spent a while in my bedroom growing up - but I was never much of a gum-chewer (no one in my family is), and once I started having TMJ (jaw problems) and braces, the dispenser ended up in the basement, where my dad kept peanuts or M&Ms in it. (Those are M&Ms pictured in the drawing.)
I also drew small black-mat-board colored pencil drawings for each of my friends as holiday presents that December. I spent hours on those gifts. I was really into the whole colored pencil thing.
And then I went to college and chose watercolor as my concentration. I took several drawing classes, too, but the focus there was more on charcoal or pastels (which are so messy). So it was awhile before I got back into colored pencil. I do love it though (which a quick cursory look at my Etsy shop will tell you), and I've been making a lot of smaller 5"x7" colored pencil drawings lately.
I love working with black backgrounds because it makes you think backwards - instead of adding pencil to make the darker areas darker, you preserve the darks with the black paper (or black mat board) and then use the pencils to make the lighter areas lighter. Also - I "cut my teeth" on colored pencil on black mat board in high school, so it just seems easier to me to start with a dark background instead of white paper, even if it is "backwards." :)
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