Etch-y, not edgy, art: Teacher uses a toy from his childhood to show his love for all things Philadelphia

John Obringer didn t really enjoy other forms of art like drawing or coloring as a kid But he loved his Etch A Sketch and spent a lot of time perfecting his sketching on the shake-to-erase mechanical toy during long car trips We did a lot of long car rides visiting family that live far away and this was before majority of kids had Championship Boys or any sort of video games or TVs in the car he commented So my parents bought me an Etch A Sketch and I figured out pretty early on that I could draw on that better than most of people I just was able to kind of control the patterns on it better Obringer used it to sketch classic rock band logos but the habit faded around the time he was in middle school This past summer though he rediscovered his love for Etch A Sketch art when he moved into a new house John Obringer and his wife Morganne during a TV interview NBC I thought I haven t seen this in a long time I wonder what I could draw I was just looking around at what kind of things might be easy to draw So I did the Philly LOVE sign and I drew it because that s very angular and I thought it wouldn t be that hard to do I drew that and then I did like a little Philly skyline next to it and I thought Really that turned out better than I thought it would So I decided I would try drawing specific other Philly-related things Obringer a professor in East Falls stated he has developed a passion for creating these Philly-centric art pieces and has begun sharing them Obringer creates Etch A Sketch renditions of popular Philly symbols including the LOVE statue Photo courtesy of John Obringer A unique combination Obringer s designs gained traction with a wider audience after his wife posted them on Facebook Requests began coming in from people interested in buying his work I would draw more logos and sell them and I ve just been selling to people casually who have messaged me and questioned Hey can I get this as a gift for my husband or a gift for my parents or whoever I ve been making birthday gifts for people And businesses have reached out about drawing certain logos for them or drawing the front of their building Obringer s Etch A Sketch renditions can range from birthday wishes to Philly logos Photo courtesy of John Obringer Obringer mentioned he s happy to cater to requests and enjoys seeing others appreciate the uniqueness of the Etch A Sketch pieces he is creating It s just been cool sharing my drawings with people and being able to have a creative design that you can t really recreate any other way he reported Individual sketches can require a lot of work Creating an Eagles helmet sketch one of the hardest designs he s undertaken took about hours he declared I thought it turned out really cool he mentioned But I spent a long time making it really good The slower you move the smoother you can make it and the more detail you can put into it Obringer s sketch of an Eagles helmet took him almost hours Photo courtesy of John Obringer Obringer has developed a process to minimize errors and starts from the hardest part of the drawing When I do the normal Eagles logo I dependably just start with the beak of the eagle because that s the part that sometimes may take me six or seven tries and I just have to keep erasing it he announced So I start with that and then once I get that done then I go to the next-hardest part and then I kind of work my way through the easier stuff Obringer recreates logos for all types of Philly teams including the Phillies Photo courtesy of John Obringer That helps to avoid big mistakes later in a project after he has put in a lot of time He disclosed he can usually fix minor mishaps with shading at the end of the drawing The most of tough part of the process Obringer declared is disassembling the Etch A Sketch so that the art doesn t disappear when shaken You really have to cut it open so I just get a knife and I cut open the Etch A Sketch he mentioned Then there s what I think is an aluminum powder on the inside and I take a shop vac and I vacuum all that out Then I take the etch part and I disassemble that too And then when I glue it back together you can turn the knobs and you can shake it and nothing will disappear Obringer says he couldn t do it without his wife Morganne She made the initial post and she s been the one who s been really fielding all of the orders so she really is the one keeping a list of everything and talking to everybody about what kind of orders that they wanna do he announced To learn more or to commission your own Etch A Sketch piece head over to John s Instagram page View this post on Instagram A post shared by etch in the city The post Etch-y not edgy art Lecturer uses a toy from his childhood to show his love for all things Philadelphia appeared first on Billy Penn at WHYY