June 9, 2025 by Sarah Pipino (‘26)
We’re almost at the finish line, people! Just a couple more days of school and then we can enjoy our very well-deserved break and spend our time sitting out in the sun instead of cooped up inside a sweltering classroom. Even now, we can observe in the hallways that sleeves are getting shorter while the days are getting longer, and with each passing block the anticipation for summer grows.
Summer, for many of us, is the time when we can allow ourselves to shine in a non-academic environment. The break from school lets us have the time to focus on what makes us happy, and a lot of students during the summer choose to utilize their creativity while they have no urgent deadlines or tests they should be working towards. This summer, I know that I will spend much of my time outside, working on my art or music or anything else that uses parts of my brain that may have gone rusty this past year, and I encourage you to do the same!
Even if you don’t think you’re good at art, (which is most likely not true because anything you create with the intent of expressing an idea counts as art), this summer can still be your creative awakening. Buy a small Crayola watercolor palette and try to paint a bird you saw in the morning, or maybe use a normal No. 2 pencil to sketch out a flower growing on the ground. Just working on little things like this can be so beneficial in making this summer break feel special and fulfilling- even a scribble on a page can be a masterpiece if you put your heart into it and it means something to you.
Now, in honor of the approaching season, here are some of my personal favorite works about summer! I will not do explanations for these paintings or short blurbs about their history, so I hope you instead use them as inspiration for your artistic endeavors in the next couple of months.
Unnamed Illustration by Bernie Fuchs
Photo source: Bernie Fuchs original art on ebay
Women Walking on the Beach (Paseo a Orillas del Mar) by Joaquín Sorolla
Photo source: mappingmemories.ca
Tahitian Women on the Beach by Paul Gauguin
Photo source: totallyhistory.com
Summertime City by Kadir Nelson
Photo source: store.kadirnelson.com
Together Swimmingly by Angela Sinclair
Photo source: myemail.constantcontact.com
Summer Sleep, New York by Irving Penn
Photo source: www.artic.edu
Loved this—light, playful prompts that make summer creativity feel doable. The “follow the light” idea especially clicked for me; I’m trying 10-minute color studies at golden hour all week. Do you have a go-to medium you reach for when the muse is shy—gouache, markers, or just a pencil and porch?