That's great that you have that kind of freedom in your class. I only took 2 art classes in High School. One was ceramics, talk about goopy, I hated it. The other was a Begining Art class. The stuff the teacher was showing I had learned in elementary school by my dad. I was totally bored. I skipped the whole color section (I'm color blind, so it was merely an execise in frustration), and I ditched the final to go surf a big South that had come in. I still managed an b+, but learned nada.

If Guy Harvey is some one you'd like to follow after then start studying his work. See if you can find some originals to look at, then start doing copies. Get books w/ super good pics of fish. Then start doing studies. Get a sketch book and just take a picture of say a dodo, then start drawing different aspects over and over. Like say the jaw structure, draw it till your bored, then do it some more. Then do it w/ different mediums in different sizes. Do some fast and gestural, do some very methodical and tight. Do this for as many areas of the fish as you can. The pick a new species. Practice, practice, practice.

If you keep this type of pratice up, by the time you are ready for undergrad you'll be able to get into a good school and probably skip some classes. Maybe sometime you can come out to my school, you can see some interesting work, and I'll load you up w/ some supplies. I have tons of stuff I don't use, that would give you a chance to experiment. Maybe we could trade for say you wrapping a blank for me?

Amish Ed