SOA Visual Artists

The first round of auditions for Visual SOA Visual Artists is happening Saturday, March 9. We are going to insist that everyone use the supplies we provide while creating their live still life drawing. For those of you practicing, you might want to start working with a 2H, HB, and 4B pencil with an eraser and single blending stump. I'm also posting a couple of photos that will give you an idea of what our still life stations will consist of: We love seeing how potential future students approach the chromed tea kettle. Each station will also have an art mannequin, geometric form, transparent interesting glass, a shell, some marbles, flowers or plant, and an interesting white object. When looking at these images we realized we need some texture on the base (aka "floor") so we're currently peeling off the skin of corrugated cardboard in order to expose the ribs. Please understand that there's also a possibility that we might change any object you see in these photos (with the exception of the chrome kettles and mannequins). We look forward to seeing everyone's creations in the near future, and suggest that you practice drawing for 30 minutes every day!

My name is Dayton Colie - I'm one of the Visual Arts teachers at Charleston County School of The Arts. We're changing the Still LIfe Drawing portion of the audition - it will be live and in person at SOA. There will be two sessions mid March (use the official time and date location provided by SOA). The Subject matter of the still life will be the similar - reflective object (we're trying to get Chrome tea kettles), art Mannequins, Solid Geometric shape, transparent glass, and a plant of some sort. There will be multiple stations in the cafeteria with 5-8 artists at each station. We're trying to decide what artists are allowed to use materials wise. I feel like two pencils - a standard HB and a 4B, an eraser, and a blending tool (napkin, blending stump, or fingertip) is what your artist should practice with.
This final sentence is extremely important: Information provided directly from Charleston County School of The Arts in regards to audition times, information, etc is official - this page is not.

Thank you parents for coming out tonight and attending our Fall Fine Arts Exhibition.
Ms. Cimballa’s 10th and 11th grade visual arts students, really worked hard to demonstrate their technical skills using anatomy as their subject matter. They also learned a new media…colored pencils!

Also a big thank you to the 11th grade AP candidates who were on hand to answer questions about AP and show their work.

Congratulations Amelia!

Several of our High School Visual arts students won awards in Charleston Artist Guild's annual Senior Art Show. The quantity of winners from SOA is numerous, so I'm going to ask you to select the link and scroll through. Charleston Artist Guild awarded thousands of dollars in scholarship money to each major winner. The award winning student work is amazing, and the nurturing of future artists by CAG has us awestruck. Please make sure to support this group when you make art purchases. https://www.charlestonartistguild.com/outreach-programs/high-school-senior-art-awards-2021/

Congratulations are in order for 7th grade Visual Arts major Quinn Powell. She created the winning design for the 2022 Charleston Youth Marathon T-shirt! 7th grade Visual Arts majors Susan D**g came in second place, and Brooklyn Kleinschmidt came in third. Way to go!

SOA Visual Arts Majors have had an amazing December! We'll start with a shoutout to sixth grader Fenya Connor and 7th Grader Violet Messenger. They took First (Fenya) and Second (Violet) place in the South Eastern Wildlife Exposition Youth Photography Competition (2022). Way to go!

All of SOA's award winning artwork from the 2021 Coastal Carolina Fair is currently on display in the administration hallway (where the front office is). We will move a significant portion of it to the RMMT on December 6th for the Taste of SOA event. We hope to see you there!

We are hosting Auditions for Grades 8-12 on March 20th and 21st. I've outlined the times below. This year we need help checking students in outside in the hall before they enter the studio space for the drawing test. Please let me know if you're able to offer some of your time, and thank you all in advance for being involved in our program.

Friday March 20th 4:30-5:30
Saturday March 21st 10:00 and 12:00

Please let us know ASAP if you can volunteer for any shift! Email Ms. Cimballa at:

[email protected]