Lakeview high school’s art teacher, Jeff Piper, has been teaching for twenty-two years, all of them in the Lakeview district. His beginner classes Art 1 and Art 2 teach different techniques and how to use them in different scenarios. In his Art 3 and Art 4 class he allows his students the privilege to create their own goals and objectives for themselves while exploring these techniques. In his Art 4 class he has two senior students, both girls, Carley Brainard and Camryn Ross.
Piper allows them freedom, “They have the first week of each nine week period to research ideas, artists, techniques, and materials that they will need and use in order to create a series of works that are original. I will review their nine-week plan and give suggestions, stipulations, and what I would consider to be a sufficient amount of work to get done with and then they have 8 weeks to get it all accomplished. Their work is then critiqued at the end and given a grade.”
With the assignment in mind, Brainard goes about her first project by using her favorite medium, acrylic paint, to “create a forest landscape that will have a few shapes around it, that will be less detailed and more bright, to give off more of an abstract look. There is no reference to this painting, [she is] purely using [her] imagination.”
Although Brainard does not have an artist she really truly admires, she has used Bob Ross, a goofy but brilliant artist, for inspiration when first looking into painting landscapes. After high school she plans on continuing art as a hobby, as it is something she thoroughly enjoys and already does outside of school.
Ross also decides to use acrylic paint, for her first project, “I chose to create self portraits in an impressionistic style – it is done because I know my face more than anything and I love to recreate my own features on a canvas. It’s a form of reflection, self expression, and a lot of love.”
Rather than using inspiration from other artists, Ross has a few pieces that she finds pretty, from artists like Claude Monet, a French artist, or Monika Luniak, a German artist, both extremely famous oil painters. Ross paints with acrylics, but would love to use oil paints similar to the artists listed. When painting, she paints in a way that is aesthetically pleasing from her point of view, that evokes a sense of peace and calm for her. She just wants to be able to leave a positive impression on the people who view her artistic abilities. And so due to her focusing on her own features, in her own way, she doesn’t necessarily need inspiration from others when painting.
After high school, Ross would love to look into a minor degree in an art of some sort, but if that doesn’t work out for her, she will likely pursue art as either a side hustle or a hobby. Maybe she will make it big in the world of art, who knows!
Both girls, although great at art, have very different styles, even though they use the same medium. Both girls have submitted paintings into competitions and Ross has even won first place previously, as a junior. Hopefully they are both able to submit into more local competitions this year and rank high once again!
They have made great progress on their paintings and continue to work hard on them daily, during the last period of classes. Soon enough the end of the first nine weeks will be over and we will be able to see the finishing results. Good luck girls, we can’t wait for the final reveal!
