Photo: Andrew Mazariegos-Ovalle/The Olaf Messenger
I always loved illustrating and drawing on paper with a mechanical pencil; that’s been my main medium of expression and artwork I use to create when I have the opportunity to doodle or draw something bigger. I’ve explored and experimented with different forms of art: digital, collage, painting with acrylic and watercolors, sculpting, and photography. Although all are good mediums, I just always liked illustration the most. Whether I can illustrate with just a pencil, pens, ink, markers, or colored pencils, I do it all on a sheet of paper.
The toughest part about creating art is motivation. I love art, I love creating something that means something to me whether it’s something silly or something that I can put meaning behind, but it’s hard to be motivated enough to draw consistently. Art block is another heavy blow that can leave the best artist knocked out in their studio. It’s when you can’t come up with an idea or, worse than that, when you want to draw something more complex and complicated than you can normally do but you can’t put your imagination and creativity onto the paper because it’s harder than expected.
I stopped drawing in middle school after losing motivation, drew again in my freshman year of high school because of the beginner painting and drawing class, then COVID-19 hit. My brother continued with advanced painting and drawing while I tried different smaller mediums like media art and photography. Then he joined AP Studio Art while I continued with smaller art classes like design studio and illustrating for my high school’s newspaper. Finally, I had the opportunity to also join AP Studio and meet back up with my brother as well as so many amazing people in that class.
To be able to watch my brother grow, improve his art style, and seeing progress each year I saw his artwork really made me want to continue and be able to draw with him. My brother was the main driver for me to continue to experiment and pursue art as a passion. He told me to continue with art and be proud of all of my work. And I did that, from my senior year to now. All of the time I spent those years have been on my most proudest pieces of art. It’s all thanks to my amazing brother that I have been able to create pieces of art that I am proud to see off to others.
