Howard's masterpieces

Howard's masterpieces

When Howard’s art class calls for re-creating the classics, he finds great inspiration in his friends.

Howard knows what he likes, and he just loves art. He enjoys trips to museums, where he will spend hours looking at the paintings and appreciating the work of the masters. His imagination runs wild trying to picture what inspired each composition.

But he doesn’t really know much about art, though. He feels moved by it, yes, but he can’t analyze types of strokes or talk about art periods. Howard would love to learn more about the techniques. So, when he saw an advertisement for art classes in the evenings, he thought that was the perfect opportunity.

He was very happy. He met new interesting people and learned a lot about some of the most important painters in history. But it wasn’t just theory. The students also got to experiment with the mediums and techniques. The assignments were usually about the painters they talked about that week, and the students were supposed to re-imagine one of the paintings they studied.

This was actually a highlight in Howard’s opinion. Of course one week is not enough to master any of these techniques. But that was not the point of the exercise. What really mattered was to let their imagination come out to play — and that’s something Howard could do with the best of them.

He let himself be inspired by everything that was happening around him.

During the week they were talking about Edvard Munch, Oliver told Howard about a really strange nightmare he had recently. So it wasn’t very difficult for Howard to imagine his friend in The Scream universe.

Last time he saw his friend Kevin, he had just come back from a trip to the Netherlands, where he managed to get an ear infection. When Howard’s class studied Van Gogh, Kevin was constantly in his mind… Howard’s brain seems to enjoy a dash of dark humor from time to time. He doesn’t fight it, though. He just goes with the flow.

His friend Sandra has a huge collection of earrings. He is sure she has one that looks exactly like the one The Girl With A Pearl Earring wears.

Ceci n’est pas un chat. He learned that Magritte often had cats as the main subject of his paintings. Well, that was easy. Jasper was the perfect candidate.

Howard is very happy with the work he has developed so far. It is such a treat to be able to mix together two of his favorite things: art and his friends!