“I started drawing when I was 6. That was like stick figures, but my drawing skills were starting to develop once I got into high school when I was a freshman. Each year I took art classes and I started doing self-portraits but I wasn’t really good at doing realistic people. And then I started reading comic strips and I started sort of like copying them and one day- um, one semester I took an architecture class and on my free time I would copy the characters from the comic strips out of the newspapers, like Charlie Brown. And my teacher came up to me and said, “You know what? Your drawings are good but you should start making your own characters.” And at first it was kind of like challenging because I couldn’t really like, visualize- I mean, it was hard to picture the characters in my head.
So when I got into college I was taking a 3D design class and one of the students was telling me “Ok, so just take your time and go slow. Picture a box and then you start drawing that box.” And making the lines or whatever, and doing it step by step. So for a person, when you draw the eyes you draw circles, and then the nose, and so like, pretty simple. And then I started getting pretty good at drawing cartoon characters and realistic people.
Ever since I was taking art classes in college, I have been implementing what I learn and experience in my work. Like when I did my family collage drawing. I created a family collage drawing that shows who are the significant people in my life and what we like to do as tradition. My family likes to have Saturday and Sunday dinners. So I drew what they eat and then cut out and collaged the pictures.
Today was my first time teaching. I’m learning a lot, as much as I can. I learned that its good to ask the students questions about what they are learning. I taught watercolors and patterns today, using warm and cool colors. A lot of their work was looking really good.
(Making art) is like- a learning process. I think it helps to know who you are, like who you really are as a person. It’s like defining yourself in your artwork. So whatever I do, whatever I experience, I put in my art.
So I think that will help kids learn who they are, like- putting in their knowledge and experiences into their artwork. So they can learn who they really are. Can know who they really are.”