I have been an art kid ever since I could hold a crayon. Drawing pictures served as my main form of communication for a long time, since I was hindered by a speech disorder for the first few years of my life. I struggled with talking and I couldn't form coherent sentences until I was five, so art was an outlet for my emotions, as well as an essential tool for communication. After years of speech therapy, I could speak like any other kid; but I still kept my connection with art as a hobby, rather than a tool. As most kids with cable did, I spent hours of my day watching cartoons. Most people watch them purely for entertainment value, but I grew interested in the art that composes everything in the shows. I adored having the ability to recreate my favorites characters from screen to paper. I carried my love for character fanart to middle school - supposedly the age where kids are too old to watch cartoons. Some people appreciated drawings, but raised their eyebrows when the subject matters were from video games they never heard of or from cartoons they stopped watching years ago. In a community that did not care about the arts, I started to feel left out and labeled as a weird kid. I made a handful of artist friends, but I still felt like I didn't belong. However, that didn't stop me from continuing to do what I love. Despite the alienation, I kept watching cartoons, playing games, and making fanart. I started exploring different mediums like digital art, acrylic, gouache, chalk pastels, ceramics, and more. I started branching out of fanart - I painted landscapes and started creating original characters and settings. When my grades started getting harder to keep up with, and the stakes were getting higher, I turned to making and consuming art as a coping mechanism. I had an incredibly hard time, my relationship with my parents started straining, and I wasn't sure if I would be able to go to college, but drawing calmed my nerves and helped me finish high school on a high note. Art has always been with me for my entire life. It guided me through thick and thin, and I don't know what I would be if I wasn't an artist. Because of this, I decided that for my future career, I will become an illustrator, a concept artist, or an animator. I want to create or contribute to something that reaches a wide audience, so that someone out there can discover their passion for the arts. I hope that one day, someone will go through the same journey that I did and use my works as a comfort and a guide for themself. My favorite piece that I've created is my final for my last painting class. It's a piece of concept art for a story I've been raking through my head since high school about a mysterious witch - Trish - dwelling in an overgrown cottage in the middle of the woods, who suddenly reunites with an amnesic old friend. I've drawn some character art for this story several times before, but this is the first time that I've made a fully fleshed-out painting of the setting, and I could finally clearly see my vison for my story in front of me for the first time. I am not sure which form of media I want to show my story in, I'm considering either a comic, a visual novel, or even an animated film (If I can get the resources for it). I am pursuing a minor in animation, so hopefully the option for an animated film will be on the horizon. That piece is not only my best painting, it's a culmination of my dreams of being a published creator and storyteller, and an expression of my life efforts to get into university and become the artist that my grade-school-self wanted to be.

I have been an art kid ever since I could hold a crayon. Drawing pictures served as my main form of communication for a long time, since I was hindered by a speech disorder for the first few years of my life. I struggled with talking and I couldn't form coherent sentences until I was five, so art was an outlet for my emotions, as well as an essential tool for communication. After years of speech therapy, I could speak like any other kid; but I still kept my connection with art as a hobby, rather than a tool. As most kids with cable did, I spent hours of my day watching cartoons. Most people watch them purely for entertainment value, but I grew interested in the art that composes everything in the shows. I adored having the ability to recreate my favorites characters from screen to paper. I carried my love for character fanart to middle school - supposedly the age where kids are too old to watch cartoons. Some people appreciated drawings, but raised their eyebrows when the subject matters were from video games they never heard of or from cartoons they stopped watching years ago. In a community that did not care about the arts, I started to feel left out and labeled as a weird kid. I made a handful of artist friends, but I still felt like I didn't belong. However, that didn't stop me from continuing to do what I love. Despite the alienation, I kept watching cartoons, playing games, and making fanart. I started exploring different mediums like digital art, acrylic, gouache, chalk pastels, ceramics, and more. I started branching out of fanart - I painted landscapes and started creating original characters and settings. When my grades started getting harder to keep up with, and the stakes were getting higher, I turned to making and consuming art as a coping mechanism. I had an incredibly hard time, my relationship with my parents started straining, and I wasn't sure if I would be able to go to college, but drawing calmed my nerves and helped me finish high school on a high note. Art has always been with me for my entire life. It guided me through thick and thin, and I don't know what I would be if I wasn't an artist. Because of this, I decided that for my future career, I will become an illustrator or a concept artist. I want to create or contribute to something that reaches a wide audience, so that someone out there can discover their passion for the arts. I hope that one day, someone will go through the same journey that I did and use my works as a comfort and a guide for themself.

When I was little, I adored watching animated movies, shows, reading comics, basically anything that was drawn by an artist. I was so enamored by them, that I cultivated my own dream to create and publish my own story. I carried that dream for a long time, and I chose to attend Hartford Art School in the University of Hartford so I could make that dream come true. My favorite piece is my final for my last painting class. It's a piece of concept art for a story I've been raking through my head since high school about a mysterious witch dwelling in an overgrown cottage in the middle of the woods, who suddenly reunites with an amnesic old friend. I've drawn some character art for this story before, but this is the first time that I've made a fully fleshed-out painting of the setting, and I could finally clearly see my vison for my story in front of me. This piece is not only my best painting, it's a culmination of my dreams of being a published creator and storyteller, and an expression of my life efforts to get into university and become the artist that my grade-school-self wanted to be.

After completing my first year of art school at my university, I really came to understand that the everyday world means *everything* in painting. I created more observational pieces in that one year than I could ever imagine doing before. I always enjoyed painting nature, and I'm learning to love it more as I observe it and recreate it on paper and canvas more frequently. The natural world has stayed relatively the same for a very long time; artists from centuries ago observed the same clouds, trees, and waters that we see today, and we are still endlessly inspired by it. As you can see from the paintings attached, not only do I paint nature, I also show how bugs, animals, and humans interact with and find peace in the outdoors.

The thing that we can find in our everyday lives that inspires me as an artist would be little occurrences in nature. There is so much joy to be found outside that everyone can experience; hues of pink and blue and yellow in the clouds, water rippling into waves, and leaves fluttering in the wind. They all bring a refreshing feeling of joy and freedom. I want to recreate that feeling through my art. I study as much as I can to bring those simple joys into my paintings. During my studies in my AP Art course, I would go outside and study how water moves and how sunlight reflects on different surfaces, and then recreate it using acrylics. As you can see on the pieces I attached, I applied my nature studies as much as I could into my paintings.