sharon's cover art (new yorker edition) part ii

This is kind of a follow up to yesterday's post in which I shared a The New Yorker magazine cover design Sharon made for her illustration class.

When I posted it, I was unaware that the class assignment was to create sketches of three covers. Since they could make the covers about New York City or about politics, Sharon chose to create one of each and one that combined elements of both. Also, because they were supposed to do "sketches" which would be edited and cleaned up after they get feedback from the instructor. And that's why they may seem not quite complete.

All three are below. Sharon also showed me what some of her classmates submitted. Personally, I think hers are better than any of the others. But I'm biased. Of course, the fact that I'm biased doesn't mean I'm wrong.

The New York element of this first one is obvious:

This one combines a rat (the official animal of the New York subway) with a sunflower (which is a symbol of Ukraine):

And back to the one I posted yesterday, the Ukrainian flag with lots of animals on it:

sharon art

Three and a half years ago Sharon took an art course at the Bridgeview Academy of Fine Arts. I wrote about that here. As that class came to an end, she said she wanted to take another class. But not right away. Eventually.

Eventually has come, and Sharon is back at Bridgeview. After all this time she decided to take the same course over again rather than jump to a successor class. The illustration here is from her easel at the end of the first session.

The above should not be interpreted to mean that she stopped doing art in the interim. Sometimes it seems that she's always drawing -- whether digitally on her computer or non-digitally with pen and paper. I could shae a practical gallery of her art on this post, but that's not the point. Maybe I'll devote a post just to that. At this point, a good bit of her art -- at least the digital stuff -- is commission work. So people are paying her for her work, which is really cool.

speaking of sharon's art...

Today, Sharon's art class will be moving from still lifes to live models. That's the part they warned me about when I signed her up for class -- that she'd be seeing nude models -- women only, they hastened to tell me. It's interesting to contemplate why I would object to my daughter seeing nude women. But, I guess, better safe than sued.

In anticipation, Sharon has been practicing at home doing drawings of people based on photos she finds on the intertubes. Yeah, it's not the same since she's working with photos rather than live, and she's doing it digitally, using a drawing tablet instead of paper and pencils. Still, I'm impressed. I think she shows some real talent.

Here are some samples she was willing to let me share. My favorite is the breakdancer (which still has the reference photo showing).

sharon turns to traditional media

Sharon's creation in the first session

It's been quite a while that Sharon has been interested in art. I honestly don't recall how long it's been, but I do vaguely recollect her wanting good calligraphy pens. More recently, she turned to digital art.

It took me a while to realize how good she'd gotten. Maybe I was just too much of an obliviot. But she had all these drawings on her computer screen, and I just assumed that she had downloaded them or something. But then, while I was in her room I saw her draw one. And meanwhile, we've gotten her various tools. An electronic drawing tablet for the computer. A pen for the iPad. The suite of Adobe editing programs...

But the last time we were at Microcenter (our local electronics store of choice) buying her a drawing tablet, the salesman started talking about the importance of real media -- pens, pencils, paper. He wasn't disparaging the electronic art. But he said that it would benefit her to learn the basics. He does digital art -- and he showed us samples of his work. But he regrets not having taken classes in real media.

Well, the message hit home, and Sharon got a recommendation from a friend who takes (or has taken?) classes at the Bridgeview School of Fine Arts.

Registering her for the class was not what I expected. I'm really glad we called to talk to someone instead of just registering online. We were advised that the class she was hoping to take wouldn't be a beginner's class (even though the website listed it as one). I was also surprised to learn that her experience with digital art wouldn't help with traditional media. I realized that this would be a different process, but not how different. I also had to give an OK for Sharon to be in a class that would have nude models.* I guess that makes sense. I don't have any objections, but I can understand that some parents might, and the school needs to play it safe.

The first class was tonight. Yeah, I may be biased, but I'm impressed with the classwork she did. The teacher is tough, but Sharon seemed pleased to get the helpful feedback. And, since he was tough on everyone, she didn't feel singled out. She pointed out that she felt particularly proud when she could identify what she had done wrong before the teacher found it.

Sharon was the only kid in the class -- and I think I recall being told that this would be a class of adults. I think that was mentioned around the same point that the topic of nude models came up.

The verdict? Well, Sharon seemed really happy about the class when I picked her up. And she's excited to go back next week. That's what I wanted. It's really nice to see her excited about this.

*How does one apply to be a nude model for art classes? I could use the extra income. Of course, not for a class that Sharon takes...