Adrien Van Der Yeught, age 28, is a young man living in France who has two great passions : art and teaching. After high school, he obtained a Master’s degree in Plastic Arts. In 2016, the Toulon native became a plastic arts teacher in junior high school. Today, he shares his experience with Toombow Kids and talks about April Fool’s Day.
Toombow Kids: Hello Adrien, how are you? Could you tell us why you like your job?
Adrien: Hi everyone! This is personal, but I wanted to find a meaningful job that could be useful to society. I am passionate about art and I like teaching and sharing my knowledge. Since it it not easy to make a living as an artist, my job is great because I know I’ll get a salary every month. In addition, as a teacher, I have a lot of free time during the school vacations that I can use for my personal projects.
Toombow Kids: We are curious, can you tell us more about your projects?
Adrien: I make drawings, mostly with a ballpoint pen, on the theme of personification. For big projects, I take abstract themes like insomnia and try to represent that as an image. Then, I ask a friend who does silk-screening to create T-shirts with my drawings on them. My friends wear the T-shirts and I take pictures of them. That way, it brings the images to life in the real world.
Toombow Kids: That’s great. Now, since it’s April 1st, could you tell us how to draw something for April Fool’s Day ?
Adrien: For April Fool’s Day, you should do something that makes you smile. I will draw very colorful fish in an original style, which will make it unique.
Toombow Kids: Okay, got it. By the way, have your students ever pulled an April Fool’s Day prank on you?
Adrien: No, never. I prefer to keep a distance between us, even though I have a good rapport with them. Sometimes they’ll do a prank, but it’s quite nice and good-natured. I do have an example of a more “trashy” prank… one April Fool’s Day, a boy hung a piece of plastic on his friend’s back and wrote that it was a condom.
Toombow Kids: Okay. Have you ever tricked anyone on April 1st?
Adrien: No, I don’t think so. I may have taped a fish to someone’s back once when I was 6 years old but that’s it! (laughs)
Toombow Kids: It goes way back! Many students would like to know, do teachers play jokes on each other?
Adrien: Yes, of course and not only on April 1st. In the teachers’ room, we have a big white board and sometimes, some of us draw funny pictures on it. We laugh about it and sometimes teachers get together and become friends.
Toombow Kids: Okay, the kids will be happy to learn this secret. What advice would you give to budding artists who would like to improve their drawing skills?
Adrien: You should make the right choices. The choices you make are important, especially when you’re young. Instead of spending hours watching TV or playing on your phone when you get home, practice drawing for just one hour. You will make huge progress in just a few months. Also, I advise everyone to keep their old drawings. It’s important to be able to take pride in seeing how you’ve improved over the years.
Toombow Kids: That is great advice, thank you. To follow Adrien’s work, we invite you to check out his Instagram account : adrien.vdy_art. Happy April Fool’s Day!