One hand sketching. Two eyes fixed on math teacher Carolyn Fogarty’s white board. Nick Gann, sophomore, gently adds the final touches to his latest cartoon. Every day, Gann adds a new picture to Fogarty’s white board as he expresses his ever-changing feelings.
Gann began leaving human cartoon sketches on white boards during his freshman year in David Drury’s geometry class.
“The drawing started last year,” Gann said. “Mitch Mobley [started to] name my characters, so I made it a daily thing. The best name was Mufasa.”
Gann usually sketches pictures of Native Americans, people, and his friends. From one math class to another, Gann’s tradition moved to Fogarty’s classroom.
“[For] certain ones Mr. Drury would be like, ‘Come over, you have to see this,’ because [Gann] would draw my students,” Fogarty said. “[He saw] one of my seniors in the hallway last year. They didn’t know each other, and [Gann] drew him.”’
In addition to Fogarty’s astonishment, Gann’s fellow classmates began to look forward to his characters.
“We all enjoyed his drawings,” Mobley said. “We would walk in and immediately look at the board to see what he had drawn [because] we never really knew what he was going to draw on any given day.”
Fogarty said Gann’s drawings depend on what is on his mind. For example, Fogarty said Gann focused on drawing The Scooby-Doo show for awhile. When he does not know what to draw, he turns drawing music-related cartoons.
Gann’s drawings began a competition between his fifth hour Algebra II class and Fogarty’s sixth hour Calculus class when sixth hour saw Gann’s characters and felt they could draw better than him. They decided to illustrate a French man and challenged Gann to draw one, too. After comparing the two drawings, Fogarty said sixth hour’s drawing was nothing compared to Gann’s.
Gann’s drawings only impact students and faculty for a day before being erased. However, Gann hopes they leave an effect on others.
“I draw when people seem tired or dull,” Gann said. “It livens things up for me and everyone else.”
