Throwback Thursday: High School Art

Life seemed simple in high school.

But I never appreciated how blessed I was to take Visual Art as a subject. I miss being told to draw for five hours straight, or research a particular artist or the ideologies behind any given movement. I dream of having the chance to fill pages, canvases and walls with colours, ideas and imagined worlds.

Back then, for the briefest moment, art was allowed to be everything. It was wonderful.

It was also messy and frightfully flawed – but even flowers grow from mud and buried seeds.

So what did I do high school?

Grade 10 and 11 artworks

Grade 10: Self Portrait of a Collaged and Colourful Dreamer (acrylic paint)

Grade 10: Via Expectations (acrylic paint). It had something to do with abandoning the shoes of conventions, conformity, regulations and restrictions.

Grade 11: Buddhism Bust (mixed media around mannequin). I wanted an excuse to learn more about Buddhism, so I created this artwork based on the practices, auspicious symbols and beliefs embedded in the truly beautiful faith.

Grade 11: Praying Buddha (Pencil and pen). For our 5 hour practical exam, I sat down and drew this buddhist monk to accompany the mixed media mannequin piece.

Acternum Collage Detail

Grade 10: This is the drawing buried beneath the mixed media collage, Numaquam. In 2013, I gave the artwork to Robbie’s mother (Robbie is the model) and it now hangs above the fireplace of their home.

Grade 10: Numaquam (Pencil and mixed media). The title is Latin for ‘never’, and the piece contrasted Acternum by implying that we grow up by falling prey to shadows, nightmares and evil. We are beautiful, innocent souls until we’re destroyed by our own fears and darkness.

Acternum Collage Detail

Acternum Collage Detail

Grade 10: Acternum (Pencil and mixed media). The title is Latin for ‘forever’ and the piece implied that we could choose to stay beautiful, innocent children.

Grade 10: This is the drawing buried beneath the mixed media collage, Acternum. This year, I found the finished artwork buried in storage and have since given it to Tessa, the model.

Weekly Sketches 

We used to do weekly sketches based on themes, techniques or particular objects. I’ve lost, reworked or given away most of them – but here are a few not-quite-forgotten sketches.

This was an etching, not a weekly sketch, but I’ll put it here anyways.

That time I flirted with a photography course

I started a photography course in which we were given themes and assignments to go out photograph. I don’t remember handing anything in, but I certainly had fun photographing.

Eyes

Technology

Something Pink

High Angle

Silhouette

Something Pink

Shoes

Something Orange

Hands

Lights

Bad Habits: Chocolate

Bokeh

Portrait

Something Blue

The Sky

Something Green

Frame

Oh, and I used to do murals

I went through a phase when I painted murals for kids – I remember doing cupboards, desks, a classroom and a hospital room.

A wonderful woman with a gorgeous daughter was adopting a little girl, so she asked me to paint the cupboards of the room the girls would share. I loved the excuse to paints fairies, flowers and flutterbies.

I like to think she’s watching the two girls grow their beautiful souls.

In the same room, I also painted a fairy princess on the white desk.

I was asked to paint murals at a Montessori preschool. They wanted something that would teach the kids about the different seasons and enchanted world, so I spent two afternoons attached to this wall with tubes of acrylic paint and some lovely music.