My love of creativity started young, but the art classes I took in high school played a significant role in continuing to develop my interest. The lessons I learned from my teachers about color, contrast, composition, and more helped me to develop my skills and are things I still apply to my work today.
The piece above is titled "Conversely Speaking" and was featured in my school's art showcase in 2018. It was one of the first finely detailed still life drawings that I had created from direct observation (as opposed to looking at photo references). Still life has also become one of my favorite subjects, so I really enjoy looking back to see where much of that interest began.
"Jumping In" (left) was the final project for my first high school art class in 2016. I created this piece to represent my memories of summer camp at Hume Lake, where I had felt a strong sense of connection with my friends and with God. Hume holds a special place in my heart and I loved capturing a bit of that in a drawing.
"The Light Within" (center) was inspired by the Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis and features the character of Lucy. The larger portrait depicts Lucy during her last journey into Narnia (during Voyage of the Dawn Treader) while the smaller one depicts her first moments stepping into that magical world (The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe). This piece from 2018 represents the span of Lucy's adventures and the ways she grew through them. Narnia was a favorite story of mine in my childhood and I love how Lucy's character in particular demonstrates curiosity, kindness, courage, and a childlike faith. Revisiting these stories as an adult encourages me to emulate those same qualities, to be a light to people around me.
"Nesting" (2019) was one of my later pieces in high school. Another still life from observation, it doesn't hold quite as much personal meaning as some of my other pieces, but it was an artistic challenge, as every object in the image (except for the material it sat on) was made of white paper. I had to figure out how to push the contrast beyond what I saw in order to create a more compelling drawing.
Prior to these high school art classes, I had done very little painting, so the projects in acrylic and watercolor paints that I completed in class were some of my first focused interactions with those media. The three paintings here were some of my best work from class in 2019.
The street lamp was an experiment in abstraction, depicting (loosely) a light from my neighborhood that I would often pass during walks with my mom. This painting also features some of my favorite colors!
The donut was a still life project where my teacher encouraged me to paint big and let my brushstrokes show. This was a challenge at first, but in the end I really liked how it turned out.
The leaves were an imaginative take on a still life that I created in watercolors. I hoped to create a sense of lightness and whimsy in this piece, perhaps suggesting a bit of a story.
