Mr. Phillip Jackson, a current art teacher here at Bingham High School, recently executed an idea of his to create a mural of things that are meaningful to him, not on a traditional canvas, but on his ‘97 Honda.

Currently, Mr. Jackson teaches commercial art here at Bingham High School, which is his main job, but he also teaches in several other artistic subjects including calligraphy and drawing. When asked what inspired him to actually paint his car, Mr. Jackson replied that he has always wanted to do it, but the main motivator was that he thought that it would be fun. Mr. Jackson used one of his older beat-up cars, a ‘97 Honda, as his canvas because, as Mr. Jackson put it, “It was already pretty ugly, and I figured it couldn’t get any worse.”. This past summer, Mr. Jackson worked on painting his car here and there whenever he had the spare  time, and estimated that altogether he spent roughly thirty hours total working on it. Despite all this time that was put into it over the summer, Mr. Jackson remarked that his masterpiece isn’t completely finished yet, and that there are still some additional things that he would like to add to it in the future when he can find time. Mr. Jackson is an avid artist and has numerous sketchbooks of his art that he has compiled throughout several years.

The difficult process of deciding what to put on his car began with him just taking out some of those old sketchbooks that he had and deciding to use some of his favorite sketches from those books. Mr. Jackson said that he tried to put things on his car that were meaningful or important to him. Paintings of the San Francisco, California area, his wife, and even family pets including his dog and some chickens that he used to have cover his car. One side of his car has an ocean scene with lots of fish and a turtle covering it, simply because Mr. Jackson likes fish. Mr. Jackson remarked, “I think some characters from Duck Dynasty even made it on there.”

There were very few ingredients used in the process of painting his car. Mr. Jackson said that the only materials that he  used was some  chalk and a lot of spray paint. In contrast, there were several art techniques that were used throughout the entire process of painting in order to complete the effect that he wanted. In order to create the art piece Mr. Jackson had envisioned, he would start by outlining or sketching his designs onto the car using chalk. After this step was completed, he would spray the spray paint directly into its cap, pooling the paint at the bottom. Mr. Jackson would then dip a paintbrush into the paint, and using the brush, he would transfer the paint to the car creating sharp, clean lines rather than the crazy mess that would have resulted if he had just sprayed the spray paint on directly. Mr. Jackson completed this whole process all on his own. Mr. Jackson was able to transform an old ’97 Honda into a piece of art, checking off an item on his bucket list.