Etch A Sketch masters on display in Las Vegas library show

Darren Johnson was amazed when he first saw the pitch for the art show.

The application from a local artist named David Roberts proposed displaying artists’ illustrations – but on Etch A Sketch toys. Johnson, Clark County’s library gallery services director, immediately agreed to display the unique works.

The free exhibit, which is now on display in a west Las Vegas library, features 23 artists from all over the globe who have poured countless hours into turning scribbles into detailed works of art.

Leonardo da Vinci’s “Mona Lisa,” Vincent van Gogh’s “The Starry Night,” and Grant Wood’s “American Gothic,” all famous pieces of art history, are re-created on the iconic toy with the gray screen, red plastic frame and two knobs.

The oldest piece in the exhibit is a 1986 recreation of the “Mona Lisa” and the newest piece is only a couple weeks old, said Roberts, 42, who curated the exhibit.

Bringing artists together

Roberts, based in Las Vegas, started creating art on the Etch A Sketch when he was 15 but didn’t think there was anyone else who did it too.

“I started finding out that there were others throughout the country, throughout the world.” Roberts said, “We just started kind of connecting with each other over the internet.”

“When he proposed his show, it was amazing, the stuff that he was creating,” said Johnson, “I knew that the library customers would enjoy it.”

Jeff Gagliardi, who made the “Mona Lisa” re-creation, is one of the pioneers of Etch A Sketch art and has been doing this type of art since the 1970s.

“The purpose of me recreating fine artworks like ‘Mona Lisa’ was to send the message that art is not just available to all of us and common to all of us, but it’s something that we should be doing,” Gagliardi said, who is based in New York City.

“We are all capable and all available to do it, even if it doesn’t look all that good. It’s fun,” he said.

When people see Gagliardi’s art, they are shocked and even believe that it’s not real, said Gagliardi.

“The best part of it is the surprise element of seeing something like a masterful artwork on this child’s toy,” Gagliardi said.

“It’s something that people say, ‘How is this even possible?’ ‘What else can be possible?’” Roberts added.

Etch A Sketch art as a movement

Gagliardi and Roberts both want Etch A Sketch art to be recognized as a movement.

“You can see just so many different styles and subject matter we’ve got,” Roberts said. Some pieces take after surrealism, others are structural sketches of famous buildings and some are depictions of human anatomy, like eyeballs.

Some pieces have taken 60 hours and others take hundreds of hours to create.

The barrier to learning how to draw on the Etch A Sketch is what makes it such a rare artistic medium, said Roberts. “The learning curve is so high, and it takes so much practice just to be able to even manipulate it right,” he said.

The Etch A Sketch screen is coated in aluminum powder and the knobs control a needle that scratches off the powder to create art. To make art permanent, the Etch A Sketch is disassembled, Roberts said.

“You have to take the whole thing apart, clean out all the powder, so that when you shake it, there’s nothing to re-coat it, and then it’s forever,” said Roberts.

“Sometimes we ruin them simply by doing that. That’s the scary part,” Gagliardi said.

The exhibit will be open until Jan. 12 at the West Charleston Library, at 6301 W. Charleston Blvd. From Jan. 30 to Apr. 8, the exhibit will be at the West Las Vegas Library, at 951 W. Lake Mead Blvd.