by Elizabeth Reed, assistant editor
Students in art painting classes at A&M Consolidated High School are painting cows, chickens and cowboy boots–oh my?
Art teacher Jami Bevans’s students are preparing for the Brazos County Fair art contest. Sophomore Moriah Davis is taking a different spin on creating her country piece that is made up of a primary colored straw painted rooster.
“I spray painted it, and then we put baby powder for the clouds and, lightly from the side, spray painted the sky, and then I straw painted the rooster,” Davis said. “After, I covered [the rooster] with chasing paper and spray painted the grass; now I’m going to ink in different designs in the white spaces.”
On the topic of why she chose a rooster, “it was the only western thing I could think of,” Davis said.
Junior Ravina Patel chose her subject matter on something many people of Texas can relate to: big trucks.
“I had a picture of the truck and I was gonna put it in this landscape painting I already did, with grass and trees, but the angle of the picture I took wasn’t really working I wasn’t able to draw it into that landscape,” Patel said. “So instead I took a smaller canvas and drew out the picture by making a grid and drawing it square by square so I could make it look proportional.”
Though students had to stick to a general topic of the western genre, Bevans gave the freedom of style.
“This project is more open ended. Yes, you’re restricted to subject matter; however, this allows them to explore a style of their own choosing or a medium of their own choosing,” Bevans said. “They’re not locked into a specific thing.”
There is a cash prize for the winner of this contest, but Bevans says that’s not the goal for her students. Rather, she simply encourages their participation.
“I think it’s important for them to participate in any contest, because it gives you exposure,” Bevans said. “Anytime you enter in anything, you don’t enter to win. You enter to have your work on display for other people to see, because you never know what kind of doors that will open for you later.”
