blackboard 3

These budding artists are giving us some serious goals.

Last year, Japanese blackboard maker Nichigaku held a chalkboard art contest to find the finest classroom artists who could turn the boring board at the front of the class into a beautiful masterpiece. Hundreds of high schoolers from around Japan sent in their submissions, but only one group could be crowned champion. The winners were a pair of students from Kochi Nishi High School who drew upon their extracurricular club memories as the theme.

blackboard 1

With a national win under their belt, plus media attention from around the country, it wasn’t long before a request came in for a blackboard art commission. The musical group WHITE JAM, wanted the winners to listen to their song “Sakanaide” (“Don’t Bloom”), which was inspired by the emotions of graduation, and create a new piece of art that would become the “blackboard version” music video.

Their entire creative process was recorded from beginning to end and the progression is absolutely mesmerizing. As they expertly draw and shade, they also write the lyrics to the song on the upper-left of the board, mimicking many Japanese music videos in which the words being sung are displayed as on-screen text. Just as the chorus of the song finishes for the first time, so does the drawing and we can view the image in all its stunning glory.

▼ In the planning stages

blackboard 4

▼ The lyrics on the blackboard

blackboard 5

▼ Everything is really starting to come together!

blackboard 3

▼ Amazing! What a fantastic work of art.

blackboard 2

Despite what the song title tells us, these two girls are definitely blooming into wonderful artists. Whether it is a blackboard or some other canvas, we can’t wait to see what they will come up with next.

Source: Spotlight
Screenshots: YouTube/Universal Music Japan