Art is so important to me because it's one of the only things I have put so much time and effort into, to the point where it's one of the main career paths that I want to travel down. What makes drawing my passion is how I can put my creativity to good use for someone. I could create something uplifting and beautiful for someone to see. I can help bring someone's business ideas to life by designing their logos and flyers. Additionally, I can create illustrations of characters and backgrounds for a book series or games. There is so much creative freedom that I can have just by knowing how to draw. The challenges I face are quite serious to me because the only thing that truly worries me is finances. FAFSA didn't offer me any money at all for college and gave me only loans. I only have a small scholarship from the school, but I have to pay up to $19,080. I'm still hunting for scholarships and thinking about loans, but any money that would help me achieve my ideal future career would be a blessing. Scholarships are hard to come by, and I know it's a competitive market for them, but then I see people get 1 million dollars in scholarships while I'm left in the dust. I would be internally grateful for this scholarship. Thank you for even offering people a scholarship.

The reason why I am going to school to pursue a major in the arts is that it is something that I enjoy doing and something I can see myself doing for the rest of my life. At an early age, I was always interested in art. In pre-k, I started drawing little figures of people. I did go on an art break after that because I was just a kid living a kid's life, trying to find things that I would be interested in, which did lead to an on-and-off stage up until 8th grade year. Once COVID-19 came around towards the end of the 8th grade year, I picked up painting and drawing again! This time around, I was more consistent and not too many art blocks. In 9th grade year I was drawing a lot due to it being completely virtual. Then, when I went back in person, I started drawing more and started thinking more about my future career or even future job. I wanted to do other things like a barber, and a mechanic to and a few other options, but I lost a passion for all those things. Maybe I'd cut my hair or work on my car, but I don't know how to feel about it from a career perspective. Will I really enjoy doing this job for decades on decades to come? I know I can make a lot of money being a mechanic and stuff like that, but I can't see myself working on other people's cars for a long time. All that I have truly at the very moment that I have been practicing and doing for a really long time now is art. Art is really my true love and passion, and I am very confident in turning it into a possible career. I intend to use my artistic talents in my future in both my future career and in my personal life in a few different ways. First off, I already draw a lot in my personal life in order to keep my creative flow going, and it's something I like to do. The only way I can improve my art is to practice whenever I can. Now, in my career path that I want to choose graphic design. I am currently trying to go to the University of North Carolina, Greensboro, in order to major in studio arts in graphic design. I want to do things like designing game environments and even character concepts. I also want to design logos and flyers for up-and-coming businesses and companies, or already established companies and businesses. I want to mainly do graphic design, but also some freelancing work like painting commissions, making book illustrations, and even tattoo designs.

The reason why I chose this career in the art is because of how it allows me to express certain emotions I can't always find a way to express. I've always grew up drawing whenever I could, even if it was something cheesy like drawing on the corners of papers and draw little faces on the paper. But as I have gone of over the years when drawing, I found and grew a newfound passion for art in middle school/ high school (in the middle of covid). I never really had anything besides painting and drawing on my mind when thinking about my future career. I did have a few ideas, but they all ended up not being super interesting to me. I was thinking about becoming a barber and owning my own barbershop, and I also was thinking about doing something with space, but I ended up pursuing neither of those careers. I can always go back towards being a barber but doing something within NASA field might be beyond me. I rather draw stuff in space than being involved. My family has always told me to go for a career that I like and will most likely enjoy the most and do something within that field. You shouldn't have to wake up every day saying you dread or hate the job that you set yourself up to get. Find your true calling and see if you can make money off of it because money does indeed make the world go round and round. That is the reason why for me at this very point in time, I am all in when it comes to finding a career in the field of arts. Now what inspires me when it comes to art, I would have to say is pop art, realism, modern art, and impressionism. I'm deeply into pop art in my spare time and I try to get some realism drawing in sometimes whenever I can so I can still draw people realistically and not cartoony. I draw from life half of the time, and then I use some references from online to draw. I do end up drawing in my own cartoon style for the most part in my spare time because for the most part in my art classes I usually have to draw from reality so sometimes I need a break from all of those in class creative restrictions.

I'm very passionate about pastel medium due to the fact of how much easier it is to create art. Now it is not the only medium I use but it is definitely my favorite medium overall. First off, the blending of colors also becomes simpler in the grand scheme of things, and I don't have to find other colors between in order to make the colors I'm working together with easier. It's also very satisfying to blend pastel together using any kind of blender like a napkin, Q-Tip, or an actual blending tool. I have only developed this love for pastel quite recently. You see I am currently in a dual enrollment program where I'm taking college classes and high school classes at the same time. My first time using pastel was in my spring 2024 class called figure drawing. It was a class where we primarily drew out figures and things like that. At first, I was very hesitant to use color. I have been using graphite and ink in my artwork for years now. I never really liked my work when I used color pencils or any color medium in general, besides painting. I usually preferred to do my work in black and white, I was always scared to get the colors wrong and having to start over or not really liking the artwork to the point I would even throw it away. But, after taking that class I don't have the same amount of scarcity as I once had with using color. Learning the existence of another medium that I would gradually begin to love at the same time of taking that class. Now obviously I wouldn't know all these things about color theory and other stuff that involves colors without prerequisite classes, but I still never thought about using color genuinely until taking that class. I do try to use other mediums at other times, but I simply enjoy using pastel more than other mediums when I can. Though to be honest I don't own any pastels personally and use mediums like ink and graphite when I'm just drawing in my free time when I am doing art not for any class but just for me in my sketchbook. Graphite will always be home, but pastel is my forever paradise. Sometimes I do have to make sure i don't layer too much at the beginning because it can be hard to erase any mistakes but after knowing the proportions are right, I start layering like there is no tomorrow.