Fictional & Animation

Polyptych: The Beginning; Dinner Time!; Overshadowing; The Ending and a New Beginning.

Szabina Zeke, Grade 11

Acrylic on Paper

School: Westlane Secondary School

Teacher: Mrs. Stacy Dunn-Hodges

Principal: Mrs. Karen Simpson

Artist Statement: This work is a Polyptych with 4 different works titled: The Beginning; Dinner Time!; Overshadowing; The Ending and a New Beginning.

Szabina's artist statements and creative process can be seen here: https://sites.google.com/students.dsbn.org/visual-arts/home

The First Jump

Amelia Krughkov, Grade 9

Digital Animation

School: Sir Winston Secondary School

Teacher: Mr. Dan Ducroix

Principal: Ann Gilmore

Artist Statement: This animation is of my first horseback riding jump featuring myself and a horse named Lacey. To make this, I turned the video into images and then uploaded them to Procreate. I rotoscoped the images to make my own animation cels. For Christmas, I asked for an apple pen but I got so excited to begin this project that I started before I received it. I created my own digital pen with an empty pen shell, a damp q-tip as the tip and aluminum foil wrapped around the shell. This was challenging because I had to adjust the q-tip’s wetness frequently making sure it wasn't too wet or dry. In total, it was almost 15 frames and took 10 hours or more to finish. This was my first project on Procreate and my first animation project. The animation had some ups and downs: Some struggles I had was trying to make it as smooth as possible and having lots of details on each frame. It was also time consuming and needed a lot of perseverance to accomplish. I am very happy with how this project turned out and I had fun doing it.

Dabi

Alexia Spurrell, Grade 9

Digital media

School: Port Colborne High School

Teacher: Ms. Sandra Palencar

Principal: Mr. Paul Taylor

Artist Statement: This piece is part of a series of art I have made over quarantine, since art is one of my coping mechanism. Digital art its my preferred way of drawing. I have created this on my phone with Procreate and Ibis Paint.

This is a character I draw a lot from my Hero Academia which is my favourite anime and it brings me a lot of comfort. The character’s name is Touya Todoroki, but the goes by Dabi. I don't want to explain his entire backstory since it would take a long time (!) but to make it simple, Touya is his past self or what he likes to call dead (caused by trauma and abuse in his childhood) and Dabi was the identity he took on and refers to himself currently.

Zentangle Dragon

Sydney Van Neste, Grade 9

Pen and Ink

School: Stamford Collegiate

Teacher: Ms. Larissa Turcotte

Principal: Mr. Neil Sheard

"The Maw"

Ethan Campbell, Grade 10

Mixed Media 9X12 inches

School: Grimsby Secondary School

Teacher: Ms. Vicki Schindel

Principal: Mr. Mat Miller

Artist Statement: This project is based on the horror game Little Nightmares. I had the idea to have the top eye almost crying the black sinister liquid for the tone creepy deeps of The Maw. In the game the main Antagonist (The Geisha) has these eyes around The Maw spying on you and will turn you to stone. The glare they give is a bright yellow light, which is why I made the pupil yellow to create a creepy look to them all. The black hand prints were made with a black sharpie and represent the children who have been killed by creatures in the depths of The Maw. And at the very top is the chimney of The Maw that will soon be cooking for its next guests.

While the City Sleeps

Aaralyn Pennings, Grade 11

Mixed Media 51cm x 33cm

School: Governor Simcoe Secondary School

Teacher: Mr. Michael Grant

Principal: Ms. Teri Thompson

Artist Statement: In this mixed-media artwork, I attempted to combine the styles of Pop Art and printmaking to create a dynamic piece about heroic architecture. I feature a two-point perspective of a New York City modern building being flanked by a hero and a villain from the city. My intent was to use the hero, the villain and the architecture to create an inverted triangular composition. The use of cross-hatching on the building and the characters creates a comic book atmosphere. The wave-like patterns in the background were added to create a sense of gradation and energy in the air.

My Worst Nightmare

Morgan Tanaskow, Grade 10

digital

School: Greater Fort Erie Secondary School

Teacher: Amy Ballett

Principal: Mr. Fred Louws

Artist Statement: This is a digital representation of My Worst Nightmare.

Distant Threat

Gashbeen Hussein, Grade 11

Digital

School: Westlane Secondary School

Teacher: Mrs. Stacy Dunn-Hodges

Principal: Mrs. Karen Simpson

Artist Statement: My biggest inspiration for creating this piece was the game "Shadow of the Colossus", and my favourite Pokemon "Chesnaught" for the design of the Titan. Some visuals included a very foggy background to make the atmosphere mysterious and almost eerie. Originally this was going to be a calmer piece, depicting two friends, but my friends and I agreed that it would be harder to create with such detail in the background. So, I went for a more cinematic take.

My overall goal was to create a good looking art piece with photobashing, but halfway down the line, I wanted to see if I could challenge myself with a cinematic element, especially since photobashing is used for concept art in movies, which rely on cinematography.

I was able to achieve my goal as I consider this to be one of my best photobashing works. it took a much stronger mood than I originally intended. I think I depicted the scene quite good as well, since the monster's contrast stands out, and the brushes used for the knight were meant to be different enough for it to be eye catching as well.

Looking back now, I feel like I could have stretched the canvas more horizontally to enhance the mood, I just feel like it would make it better. One other thing that I want to change is the amount of fog and rain, I think I underplayed it a lot. Regardless, this was definitely a good start.

The End of Time

Aaron Rose, Grade 10

Pen and Ink 8.5x11 inches

School: Eden High School

Teacher: Mr. Steven Azzopardi

Principal: Ms. Sharon Burns, Ms. Ann Kennerly

Artist Statement: The setting from my superhero project inspired this art piece. I wanted to add the danger sign in the foreground of the piece to symbolize that danger was looming.

I used a very fine tip marker to create a very detailed feel to the piece. Dull and dark colour pencil crayons are used to symbolize life is there but it is fading.

A success in this piece are the signs in the foreground, as they tell a story of how a something destroyed them. A challenge was making the street and ground look level as it would in real life.

Safe Haven

Sky Hallé, Grade 11

Digital

School: A.N. Myer Secondary School

Teacher: Mr. Joe Fernandez

Principal: Mrs. Kim Carruthers

Artist Statement: This is a piece from something I have been working on for a very long time now. It follows the tale of two cheetahs. Haven and Peril. Brothers, and Gods. Together, they brought balance to our world, but where there is light, darkness follows. Over time, darkness started to overpower the light, leaving everyone sad and broken down. Haven, the spirit of light over threw the darkness, leaving Peril, the spirit of darkness quite ironically left in the dark. With an unbalanced world, you may see more light, but corruption lies underneath. Safe Haven follows the story of this corrupted world in the midst of light.

Watching

Anna Vilaysone, Grade 10

Pen and Ink 11x8.5 inches

School: Eden High School

Teacher: Mr. Steven Azzopardi

Principal: Ms. Sharon Burns, Ms. Ann Kennerly

Artist Statement: My inspiration with this work were based off of the types of things that I found unsettling as a kid. I wanted to portray how I felt when seeing these things back then, visually into a drawing. Some design considerations that I considered were the objects I choose to draw in this piece; a graveyard, a smiling moon, etc. I thought that choosing things that had a dark threatening atmosphere would suit the black and white shading I would have to do for this piece. I also added red pen to parts of the drawing, since I thought it would look good in contrast to the black and white of this piece.

Protector

Lamiss Gharib, Grade 10

Mixed Media 8.5x11 inches

School: Eden High School

Teacher: Mr. Steven Azzopardi

Principal: Ms. Sharon Burns, Ms. Ann Kennerly

Artist Statement: My superhero’s name is “Protector”. She is a strong and fierce fighter with many powers. She is an unprecedented master swordsman. Using her speed and agility, she can fight with both hands and two swords at the same time and with the same level of excellence. Not only that, but she has also two exceptional superpowers. The first superpower is her ability to control wind currents. Her second ability is to create visual illusions for her enemies, which is her signature move “The Hurricane Of Illusions”. With all her powers combined, Protector is strong enough to defeat her enemies. I chose her stage name to be “The Protector” because that is exactly what she does. She dedicates her life to protect the city of Kyoto, Japan from evil.

P24

Richard Gutierrez, Grade 11

Animation

School: Laura Secord Secondary School

Teacher: Ms. Jen Bolan

Principal: Mrs. Helena Tritchew

Trading Cards

Tatiana Baskerville, Grade 9

Watercolour

School: Eastdale Secondary School

Teacher: Mrs. Mellissa Middleton

Principal: Mrs. Rosemary Jellnick

Artist Statement: It was a challenge to work on a small scale.

Bridge

Emily Oleniacz, Grade 11

Digital Drawing

School: Laura Secord Secondary School

Teacher: Ms. Jen Bolan

Principal: Mrs. Helena Tritchew

Wildstyle!

Ryane Gillespie, Grade 9

Marker/Pencil Crayon on paper

School: Beamsville District Secondary School

Teacher: Miss. Daniela Grossi

Principal: Mr. Matt Wilson

Artist Statement: When starting out with the initial idea of drawing a lego character, I was first thinking about which one I wanted to do. I was initially torn between Wildstyle ( the Lego movie) or Lego Batman (Lego Batman movie). I felt that either would be a good choice but in the end, I chose Wildstyle. I chose her since she had the most interesting design and would be the most enjoyable to draw.

Snow Day

Lauren Percival, Grade 10

Stop Motion Animation

School: Laura Secord Secondary School

Teacher: Ms. Jen Bolan

Principal: Mrs. Helena Tritchew

Untitled

Nolin Gruhl, Grade 11

Mixed Media

School: Eastdale Secondary School, SSTC Program

Teacher: Mrs. Mellissa Middleton

Principal: Mrs. Rosemary Jellnick

Artist Statement: This is something I did in my sketchbook.

Tied Down

Nirmeen Shalabi, Grade 9

Pencil/Graphite on Paper

School: DSBN Academy

Teacher: Mr. Toby Ley

Principal: Mrs. Lisa Nazar

Artist Statement: This drawing was inspired by an anime that I watched. It shows how the boy in the picture, who is the main character, is tied down by the powers he forcefully inherited from his father. The power allows him to be able to transform into this creature which they call the "Attack Titan". He uses this power to protect and tries to bring peace and revenge for his homeland.

Yūgen Dragon

Rachael Moskalyk, Grade 11

Acrylic gouache on canvas 15.75" X 19.75" (inches)

School: E.L. Crossley Secondary School

Teacher: Ms. Sherry Wilkinson

Principal: Mrs. Janice Sargeant

Artist Statement:

I named this Yūgen Dragon because I came across the Japanese word yūgen, which in different text can mean "deep" or "mysterious". I did this solely because I wanted a dragon to put on my wall. This painting was made with gouache and black acrylic paint for the outline of everything. The face was challenging but in a good way, this was quite a fun painting to do. Again, I liked doing this one because any "mistakes" I made sort of blended in and didn't appear to be a mistake in the end.