Special Feature: Visual Art in Toyon's Pages

Sketches

Most people underrate sketches because they are something before the final product or something someone does out of boredom. Sketches are a way for people to experiment and draw what they imagine without having the pressure of making sure everything is perfectly shaded and filled in. Many artists have submitted their work to Toyon and some of the art that was being submitted and accepted were sketches that look like they were done with pencil rather than a photograph or painting. Sketches can be dated back to the beginning years of Toyon, but I wanted to focus particularly on the sketches from the late 2010s, specifically in the 2015 issue. Alenya Felts drew a picture titled "Meet the Squids," which won the Toyon Staff Award for Visual Art and was also the cover of the 2015 issue.

Meet the Squids wasn’t the only sketch that made it to the cover of the Toyon. Elisa Griego’s "Rhododendron" also made the cover of the 2016 issue, which was an issue that was heavy with sketches that were accepted and printed within this issue. Sketches makeup half of the artwork printed within volume 62 (2016).

​Many people, I believe, start learning to draw by sketching things, making doodles in their notebooks or on paper when they were children. Sketching is something that everyone can do and it doesn’t necessarily need to be considered “good” to have some meaning behind it, or for it to be considered good in it’s own creative way. I mean painting that people have just splattered paint onto sell for millions of dollars now, so what could sketches be worth if you were willing to put it out there?

Sketches are an important part of history and the history of Toyon because it have people the ability to express themselves without having to spend hours getting the coloring right and other artistic mediums that go into painting or press printing or any other form of art. 

-Salina Jimenez, 2018-19 Toyon Secretary

Striking Art

Striking, at times shocking, visual art in the 90s and early 2000s became a trend throughout Toyon and was a brief one in the 70s as well. The photographs were often dark in theme and uncomfortable to look at such as a severed foot in a tree in 2004 or shadow peeking in through the window in 1972 or a naked human body with a distorted almost skull-like face also in 2004. They were often untitled which left them with more mystery. Unlike other art in the same issues where it could be easier to grasp their meaning while still being thought provoking, these pieces made you look at them longer and dig into them.

-Kayla Stark, 2018-19 Toyon Social Media Manager

A dead bird laying on a small nest of flowers with a dead bee to its left and right sides. “Beauty Over Life” by Erin Urbanus