Putting the Art in Dartboard

Just when you thought you’ve run out of quality one-of-a-kind artwork to help your aim at the dartboard, included below is a new batch of art projects in the continuing saga of my art class. So, print them out, put them up and happy darting!

Just to keep you generally updated on my progress in my art class, it appears as though the art is getting more difficult. At least it seems that way, as the projects are taking longer and they are becoming more complex. I’m not sure if there is a progression of styles we’re following or if there is a system to our learning, but now we seem to be spending a great deal of time on shading, something I’ve always enjoyed.

And, as the weeks go by, my status of being the guy in class that doesn’t most suck at art is being challenged, as more and more people just fade away. It’s amazing. At the beginning of class, on the first few nights, you couldn’t wrestle away from anyone an available chair to sit in. Now, here we are several weeks into the course, and I can spread my paper out on two desks, kick my feet up on three stools and knock over a couple more just for sport…and nobody has to sit on the floor. There are maybe 10 people in class, which means that they are all serious art students; translation: they’re pretty good at art, even that girl that won’t shut up and the kid that keeps texting his girlfriend in Hawaii every 30 seconds. This means that, as more and more people drop the class (one woman confessed that she couldn’t take the class anymore because her was being foreclosed on and her whole family was living in a Motel 6), the likelihood of me being the worst artist in the room increases. Soon, I’m sure, I will take the top honors; lucky the instructor grades on effort, and I think she likes me. I usually get there early and we commiserate on the deadbeats in class that have comprehension difficulties. Why would she have to explain the same thing three times because people don’t get it. And don't get her started on the guy whose girlfriend did an art project for him... during another art class, as if the instructors don't talk to each other and know what the others are doing.

Oh well, on with the masterpieces.

This first one is, of course, an egg. You knew that, right? What? You thought it was a ball. That was my trouble too, but it is clearly an egg. Before us, the instructor placed a handful of eggs on white sheets, and they were placed rather haphazardly, so lucky me, all of the eggs on my side of the room, the pointy parts that is, were facing away, looking rather like balls instead of eggs. This one was shaded with charcoal and newsprint, and you can call it a ball if you’d like. On the back of this page we drew three eggs in a cut-in-half egg carton, but mine turned out looking more like three bald men standing in line at the bank so I won't show it to you. Consider yourself fortunate that you won't feel compelled to send me an obligatory "nice art" platitudes.

The next one I was rather proud of. It is a charcoal contour line drawing of my truck’s dashboard. It was pretty fun to do and relatively easy. Instead of sitting in the backseat of my truck for a couple of hours, I snatched a shot of a Ford interior (this is the XLT Lariat interior, for you sticklers), printed it out and drew it up. I enjoyed doing the details of the radio, and notice it is set to my station of choice…that or it’s twenty to seven in the morning. What I enjoyed most was the little A the instructor printed on the back.

What nightmare did this drawing fall out of? Where on earth would anyone collect all of these things together for hapless students to draw? It is almost one of those drawings in those old-timey magazines that have you search for certain items, like find the clothes pin, etc. What we had to do was incorporate a new item into our drawing as they were brought out before us. One of them was a piñata (it's the red and yellow wedding cake thing in the middle), so it made perfect sense to me to have all of these items coming out of the piñata, and the whisk is acting like the bat. I was shocked that no other student made this connection; I figured there would be 20 pinatas with junk blowing out of them. There’s an inflatable bird, a bottle with a leaf sticking out of it, an ornament, some sort of detergent box. My favorite element is the lamp lying on the table, and of course, it goes without saying, the A on the back was nice too. She even pinned it to the board and took a picture of it; now, whether that picture is going in the “good” pile or the “don’t draw like this guy” pile is not readily known, but you can draw your own conclusions. The drawing was done with Sharpies and pastel chalks.

This drawing came as a result of a class I missed because of a meeting I needed to attend. Since I wasn’t there to draw it, I had to assemble a bunch of variously shaped items of differing heights and draw them. The point was to make lines all over the page, marking the widths and heights of each item so it can be compared with all of the other items. This helps us with perspective, placement and point of view (the three Ps of art, I guess… don’t quote me, I just made that up, considering perspective and point of view are the same thing). My friend Brian will be happy to see that I drink Arrowhead water, and my sister in law will be pleased that the wine is from Weins, and my folks will be pleased that I’m reading a book they bought me for Christmas one year… but what exactly is Del Monte plastic cups? Why are they cherry flavored and why only 16? I don’t know, folks, but I can tell you that I got tired of lettering the boxes. The teacup was the most difficult thing to do as it was round. When I become an architect, I will only design rectangular buildings, so the Guggenheim is completely out of the question. This was graphite pencils of various hardness (I’m partial to 3B, which is a pretty soft lead).

The last two I did this last Monday night, a rose and some dying daisies or mums. I’m not sure, they were wilted and curly, but it was clear that they hadn’t been watered in a while. They’re both pencil base, but the rose is shaded with charcoal while the daisies are shaded with pencil (5B). I enjoyed playing with the shades to give the illusion of light, but on the rose I was disappointed with the fact that I think the outer pedals are rounded up too early, giving the impression that they are fanned out more than they should be. However, I especially like the daisy on the left. I did that one last, so I had a better idea as to what I was doing with the light.

On Wednesday we are delving into drawing our pets with a method called scratch… something-er-rather. I don’t remember. Essentially, we are taking these special ink boards and scratching them with a metal pins (picture a fancy nail) until they look like a dog. Equate it to this Elephant Joke: How do you carve an elephant? Easy, take a block of marble and chip away everything that doesn’t look like an elephant!

That killed me as a kid.

Oh, but the real punch line to the joke is that I didn’t even have to take this class! Yeah. It’s not funny, well, a little bit, but I wasn’t paying too close attention to my course requirements when I registered this fall. This art class is part of a list of electives, on which are classes more geared toward my major like Civil Engineering Drafting, Three-Dimensional Design, Materials of Construction, etc. I only need three units to satisfy my elective requirement and ART-17 is it. Oh well. It’s been fun. Enjoy.