High School Throwback Art Sunday Special! (Patreon)

Hello and happy weekend, my patrons and friends! As of Wednesday I am back in Seattle after my long cross-country road trip, and it has been CRAZY! We picked up so much stuff from our parents' houses while we were there and had to put it all away lest we be surrounded by boxes. All of that plus tons of emails, opening up my shop, getting our car registered in Washington and fixing a cracked windshield :( has left me a little overwhelmed.

But! My patrons are always on my mind, and even if I'm a little behind on my promised Arty Business article and Road Trip Travelogue, I wanted to still provide some fun stuff for you all!

What I have for you today is some super secret High School throwback art for you to giggle at, and hopefully see the improvements I've made in the last almost 10 years! While I was cleaning out my closet in my parent's house I found a lot of saved art grade school and college, and I snapped some pics for you. Let's check it out!

HIGH SCHOOL ART 2011

So! Senior year of high school I took AP Art (Advanced Placement Art) which meant... I'm not really sure now. It counted as college credit maybe? It was harder? Something like that. There were a lot less students in the class and you got a lot more freedom. Which maybe wasn't great for me, because I didn't put very much work into the projects.

I got along on last minute work for almost everything in high school, I only applied myself when the thing was directly in front of me. Sad trombone noise. Oh well, I like to think I'm a hard worker now, which is what really counts, right?

Anyway, as soon as I got home from school I spent a lot of time on the website-du-jour, TUMBLR! Which is probably why I chose Disney Princesses as the subject of my AP Art Project. Does anyone else remember when re-drawing the Princesses was the big art thing to do?

I think the above Snow White watercolor painting was one of my most rushed pieces, and you can really tell. The facial anatomy is one of the most cringe-y. But good to see I have really improved with watercolor technique!

 I actually still kind of like this Mulan piece, even if it is super dramatic! The black paper was a pretty fun material choice that pushed my technique a little further. I believe I used colored pencil and maybe white gel pen for this one? And I still love this very straightforward composition, honestly still something I would do today. 

I don't want to be too hard on the art that I made in high school, because I'm afraid that promotes being too hard on myself in the present.  Instead I like to look at improvements I've made since then, and themes I used then that I still like to use now!

One of those themes is definitely portraiture. I still love drawing people, and faces, and very simple compositions. I don't think the technique with the materials lets the composition shine, but I can see where I was going!

The lighting in this Cinderella piece was... a good try. I don't think I either trusted my reference or used reference at all for this back lighting. Use reference, Ragon!

 Ooh, charcoal! 

A classic student artist choice, but I think it fits this Jasmine piece pretty well! I  didn't push my values far enough to make it super successful, and I once again very obviously didn't use reference for her face. But I actually like the composition, minimal color palette, and I love the sketchy charcoal lines I left in a few places. 

Tinkerbell! 

Looking back, I think this is the best piece of the Disney bunch! It's from an interesting angle that tells a story. And I developed the watercolor much farther than I did in any of the other pieces. It's also more interesting to see another emotion expressed besides... What emotion were the others expressing? Blankness? Emptiness inside?

But oh no those sparkles, I still use those sparkles today. Maybe I should stop haha.

I believe we were also supposed to make some more pieces representing technique. I think this piece of the light loft above the high school auditorium is the least successful. I chose a very hard subject matter, full of straight lines and perspective and lots of cords and pipes. I also tried to do cross hatching on a huuuuge piece of paper.

Woof, set myself up for failure. Or at least a very hard time. That's fine! I've learned from my mistakes.

It looks like I also used cross hatching for this piece, but on a much more manageable scale. Can you believe I did this in high school? I'm not saying that it's so beautiful there's no way a high school-er could have drawn it, I'm saying this was technically a nude self-portrait that I brought in to school??

Maybe I didn't tell anyone I used myself for reference. All I remember is I did this super last minute the night before it was due and all I had was a mirror, some inks and paper, and myself. 

That's art, baby! I still love how I rendered the feet in this one, and how I used my favorite off-center minimal composition.

 I also submitted this graphite self-portrait. Honestly not far off from something I would do now, although I hope the technique would have improved! 

Fun experimental lighting and gestural mark-making, high school Ragon! 

 I also wanted to toss in a little comic page that I made sometime in high school after I discovered Steam Punk was a thing. I started (but never finished) so many different comics when I was in grade school. I never considered creating comics or art as a career, but literally just did it for fun. 

Not bad! 

COLLEGE ART 2012

Wow, what an improvement actually applying yourself can make! I'm still very proud of this graphite still life I made in Drawing class when I was a freshman in Art School.

 Nailed it.

I also found this little project that I made while studying Architecture abroad in France. The school visited Paris for a weekend, and for one of my classes I was assigned to create an art piece about wandering the streets of Paris.

I was studying Architecture and not enjoying it at all, but I can really tell that I loved art, and creating art. Suffering college Ragon, it's going to be okay. Trust yourself, trust your passions and interests.

EXTRA BONUS:

I made some stickers for Snapchat!! I'm so excited to give my patrons the first look at my biggest client project yet! I was hired by Snapchat (whaaat?) to design a series of digital stickers to be featured on their app from June 7th-10th. I had so much fun designing this series of Hiking/Outdoors themed stickers that Snapchat users can decorate their photos with!

 These stickers will be featured on the Snapchat stickers tab for three days (6/7-6/10) but apparently you all can download them before or after using either this snapcode:

Or this link:  https://www.snapchat.com/unlock/?type=SNAPCODE&uuid=0068f91acd8f48f3a1c46b15d337c34b&metadata=01 

I say apparently because I have used Snapchat very very little and don't really understand how it works. But! If you save these stickers and use them in your photos send me some! My snapchat is: itsragonia !

I hope you all love the stickers! It was such a fun and free project, and so so so exciting to work for such a recognizable brand. I feel like I'm... getting there. Slowly, but getting there!

Well that's all for today! I hope you found this little look back interesting! If you do, let me know, because I also brought back with me a huge collection of all my doodles from middle school to college that I could share!

I have so many more exciting updates coming for you all in the next week, so stay tuned!

You're the best, I'm thinking of you always!

xoxo

Ragon