See inside!

I should have posted these a while ago, I guess. Here's a few sample pages form the Which Art Student Are You? book. Yay!

Character Design Class.

I teach a character design class at the Hussian School of Art. For today's assignment we sat in the Bourse building's cafe area secretly sketching some of the tourists that frequent the Independence Hall area. When I wasn't encouraging the students on different approaches or giving some teaching tips, I was drawing the tourists as well.

3D Glasses not necessary!

 I have been holding on to this for a while. Toward the beginning of the year I got involved in some fun facebook shenanigans in which the first four people on your comments would receive something homemade in the mail. Of a few of the lists I made it onto, brilliant sculpture, fellow highlights artist and friend, Helena Bogosian, was one of them. I had no idea what to expect. Sometime a few weeks ago the sculpture below showed up in the mail. Upon opening it I literally screamed and laughed with excitement. Helena had taken my drawing of the Dirty Student (as seen below the photos) from my book, Which Art Student Are You?, and turned it into a three dimensional piece! It is honestly one of the coolest things I have ever seen and it is extremely touching. Thank you so very much, Helena! You're awesome!

Which Art Student Are You? Cover Art

I have finally been able to get this book finished. Special thanks to my wife Daisy, Anni Matsick, and Janelle Saaybe for helping me with the editing. Grammar is not one of my strong points so I am so very grateful for the help. At this point the only thing left to do is make the grammar/spelling corrections and send it off to the printers.

Thankfully I found some extra time to make a new cover instead of using a collage of the existing art (as I had posted in the past). The scene is a typical freshman fine art figure drawing class at Hussian, although this scene is filled with the best of the worst stereotypes studied over the past 10 years. I choose this rear view because we are able to see the artists' work or lack there of. Obviously not every student is present since it was a Wednesday so Comic Book Student was at the comic book store, Whiny Student broke her epidermis, Disappearing Reappearing Student never showed up, Alien Student was at the snack machine, Returning Student was in court for a DUI charge, Mom Student was running a little late, and the Grade Hungry Student stormed out of the room when she received her first critique.

The book will feature 25 student types (a few new student types have been added if you were wondering where the Grade Hungry Student came from) and a 12 page look at each student some 15 years later.

I'll keep you posted on when the book is available.

Vincent VanGroening.

Just to warn you I am probably going to be uploading a lot of my old stuff on the blog here. This week I started the process of moving my studio to the third floor to make room for our baby. With any move I usually take it as an opportunity to purge some unwanted art (mostly unworthy sketches) and along the way I discover some stuff that I forgot about or simply haven't looked at in years.

In this case, in what has become a very common art school assignment, I took the VanGogh painting, Portrait of Madame Augustine Roulin and Baby Marcelle and turned it into a portrait of Madame Marge Simpson and Baby Maggie. The idea was to copy the style of an accomplished painter in order to learn about their technique and color sense. For what ever reason we were instructed to add some pop culture into the mix.

The original Van Gogh painting is below. I felt like I never really got the technique down since VanGogh worked in oils and I had to work in acrylics.

PS: My wife hates both of these paintings and I am a little tired of holding on to mine. The first person to contact me gets it for free so long as you agree to pay postage and handling or you can come to my house and pick it up. If you come to pick it up I'll throw in a house tour and we can take my dog for a walk. I live in East Philadelphia, also known as Southern New Jersey.

Which Student are You?

The Which Art Student Are You? book is now available for $10 US dollars. Please see the side bar to the right for the over-the-top book trailer. The art has been re-lettered, colored, and 5 new students have been added making the total 25. Not to be missed! Thank you in advance for your support.

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I know 10 years is not a long time, but by this time in my teaching career (at the Hussian School of Art in Philadelphia) I think I have had just about every type of student. Earlier this year to relieve my stress I started categorizingand sketching out each student type. Comic artist Daniel Clowes already touched on this categorization in his great comic, Art School Confidential. Plus, I want to give credit to Dave Valeza for his Draw Yourself as a Teen, make sure to check that out! (I apologize for not posting this sooner, I wasn't entirely sure where it originated from- thanks to Charley from linesandcolors.com for the info). What I wound up with are these 21 types. Over time, I may discover that there are more types or new names for them (ie:goth is now something called emo). Originally I had excluded the average/good students because average/good is not very funny but with much pleading and begging I added it in.

Listen, I know some people will become fairly ticked off by this. Prior to making these public I ran them by a lot of my students and they seemed to think they were funny and fine to post. Please practice your sense of humor when looking at them.

Anyway, enjoy them and let me know which one you think you are or were...

The rest of my blog can be seen here.

Please do not repost more than one of these without my permission. Links to this blog are more than welcome.