‘The Calm Before the Storm’ captures a student’s memorable moment leading toward her becoming a Chanticleer.
Back in high school, freshman history major Lee Fournier was assigned in class to create a piece based on a photo, in the style of another artist. Fournier decided on a picture of Myrtle Beach’s shore and used POSCA pens on a wooden canvas to bring it to life.
Coming from Greenville, she originally took the photo of the shore to remember the moment’s importance.
“It was important to me because it was taken on the day that I first came to visit Coastal. It was for my tour, we had stayed on the beach,” Fournier said.
When transforming the photo into artwork, Fournier looked toward Vincent Van Gogh as her inspiration, recreating swirls and patterns that mirrored Vav Gogh’s work.
The piece incorporates different patterns and textures to create a cohesive work of art. By using different shades of blue, black, white and grey, Fournier was able to create the illusion of waves as well as the different shades and tones in the sky.
However, Fournier faced some challenges throughout the process.
“I never worked with a wooden canvas before and the POSCA markers,” Fournier said. “It was different not being able to create my own colors to perfectly match, and I had to layer them to make it how I wanted it to be.”
Art has surrounded Fournier since she was young, from playing instruments since third grade, to starting her drawing career her junior year of high school.
“My family is big in like music and stuff. Like, my mom and grandma did band, and I’m in the band now. It’s mostly my family, they encouraged me to be artistic and do whatever,” Fournier said.
Fournier uses physical art as a hobby and hopes to keep improving, valuing continual growth as an artist.
“I just want to get better with my art, work on improving my skills one piece at a time,” Fournier said.