I’ve been feeling a bit nostalgic lately, which isn’t hard to do when my office/art room/cat room is filled with some of my art from my college days. So, I thought I would share it and talk about it.

These were created in 101 classes I had to take before I got into my core graphic design classes. Guess they wanted students to grasp the concept of creating something directly from your hand to paper before you went on to creating it on the computer. Guess that’s why it’s more of a hobby than a profession for me right now. Anyhoo, figured I would start by publishing my humble beginnings. Later will be some of my black and whites where I absolutely fell in love with photography in the first place.

This first one was just a still life that the professor threw together in class. I think we had two 90-minute classes to draw this. I think this was the first time I had to draw “for real,” not just for fun, and under pressure. I think I did an OK job ;-)

I don’t remember the exact parameters for this project, I think it had something to do with dissecting an object and drawing six different “perspectives” of it. Had a ton of fun with the kiwi and even used it in another “your choice” drawing. Not sure why the first top two almost look identical, but it was fun all the same.

The fruit/vegetable challenge (your choice) was my second favorite. It must have been in the fall (and I LOVE the fall), because I chose pumpkins and gourds. I practiced on a smaller piece of paper and I personally think it came out better than the larger one I did.

The next two were part of a series of three. We could submit any three pieces as long as the subject matter was the same. I drew two dragons and the third was still a dragon, but I used this weird spray paint, layering effect that I didn’t end up liking the finished product, but ran out of time to do anything else (which is why it’s not framed like the rest of them are).

I forget the name of this, it’s something like an Allegory, but not, because I looked up the definition and that’s not really what this was ;-) The professor told us to choose a painting and recreate it using different characters. So, I chose A Venus at Her Mirror and changed the characters into fruit. Not the best drawing, but it was certainly fun and I still chuckle every time I take a good look at it.

By far, my favorite art project was this next one. The professor wrote down her favorite song lyrics on pieces of paper and each student drew one. Mine was “I’ll make it to the moon if I have to crawl.” A lot of her lyrics were from the Chili Peppers, guess she was a fan ;-) But I had the absolute best time thinking of how to represent that on paper. I used up every single piece of black chalk I had and my fingertips were black for days, but I had the best time doing this one and it’s one of the ones I’m the most proud of.