News — Artwork

“Art is all I’ve ever known” are the words of the new record holder for the world’s largest drawing by an individual. Dyymond Whipper-Young’s artwork covers 6,507 square feet, beating the previous record held by Italy’s FRA! by 400 square feet.

The Philadelphia-based artist told RNBPhilly that she was recommended by a substitute art teacher in her school for the Crayola-sponsored art project. This project was meant to hype and be a prelude to the company’s new installment titled, “Crayola IDEAworks: The Creativity Exhibition” housed at the Mandell Center at The Franklin Institute. The organizers specifically looked for a Philadelphia based artist to work with.

It took five days, a whopping 63 hours, and only one type of marker; Whipper-Young started with the black Crayola Project XL Markers and used 57 of them to create the giant-sized doodle art piece.

“I believe that creativity is in all of us and with this exhibition and the drawing, the purpose is to inspire people to find their creative pulse,” Whipper-Young said in a video sent to the press.

FRA!’s drawing was in 2020 and it covered 6,100 square feet. Whipper-Young’s work covering the floor of the Franklin Institute has now made history covering 6,507 square feet.

“Everything you see in this drawing is a reflection of what’s in Crayola IDEAworks,” Whipper-Young said in the video. “It has sea, it has land, it has space. You’ll really get to experience those things once you’re in IDEAworks.”

The immersive exhibition, which originally covers 17,000 square feet, allows visitors to do “interactive challenges that hone their skills,” Crayola IDEAworks writes on its website. “The four sections in this area, I, D, E, and A, will feature questions and puzzles that will determine creative strengths.”

Crayola collaborated with the Franklin Institute as the latter aims to “inspire and empower” everyone no matter their age to get in tune with their creativity and feed their curiosity.

On how she got the gig, Whipper-Young said it all started with a direct message from one of the organizers of the exhibition. After a conference call with the Franklin Institute and Crayola executives, the young artist got the gig. She admits she would not have otherwise tried out for such a project if she had to audition for it because she thought “it was too big” for her.

“I always told everybody that if I saw that opportunity, I would never have applied, God dropped that thing right in my lap because I would have thought it was too big.”

According to Whipper-Young, she later realized the size was not even an issue because everything worked out perfectly.

The Temple alum who is originally from Baltimore went straight to art school after elementary school. She was 11 years old at the time. She trained in fine arts in high school and studied all forms of art and now works as an art teacher and freelance artist.

The art teacher is currently working on a sculpture that will feature her famous ‘twerking sculpture’ which she made when she was in high school. She is all for making museum-worthy art but according to her, hers is a cross-section between fine art and Black culture.

Art pieces created by Kanye West when he was a high school student have been bought by entrepreneur Vinoda Basnayake, Page Six reported. Basnayake reportedly bought West’s drawings after seeing the pieces on an episode of PBS’s “Antiques Roadshow.”

“Kanye’s cousin owned the trove, which was created by Kanye during his days as a student at Polaris School [in Chicago],” Page Six quoted a source as saying. The source did not reveal how much the paintings cost but the collections originally appraised on the PBS show were valued at between 16,000 and $23,000.

The drawings, reportedly first created in 1995 when West was 17 years old, include works he did in graphite, gouache on board, and scratchboard. “By age 17, he’s already been studying at these extraordinary artistic institutions,” the Antiques Roadshow appraiser Laura Woolley said, according to Page Six.

Kanye West attended the Hyde Park Art Academy, Art Institute of Chicago, Nanjing University in China and the Polaris School for Individual Education. 

West’s wife Kim Kardashian, it will be recalled, posted on Instagram reminding her followers how good her husband was when it comes to artwork after some fans expressed doubt over the authenticity of a painting she claims was done by their seven-year-old daughter North. The post came with DNA emojis, insinuating that painting runs in the blood.

According to the Independent, the man who first brought West’s artwork to the Antiques Roadshow said he’s married to West’s first cousin, who received the artwork after West’s mother died in 2007. The portfolio is dated circa 1995, the year West turned 18, the report added.