Southwest students draw their future.
Vibrant colorful images, serious monotone sketches, characters with lives of their own and unique talent are all stuffed away in the piles of sketchbooks inside the rooms of many students who love to draw.
There are plenty of students at Southwest who enjoy drawing and want to improve their talent, each with their own way of finding inspiration and a dream that involves their talent.
Armature artists are all around looking for their next stroke of inspiration in hopes of one day creating something that will hopefully turn them into the next Picasso or Da Vinci.
“(Art) is all around us in the world,” said Jacqueline Pleitez, the art teacher at Southwest High School.
This is Pleitez’s first year teaching art, which has been a dream of hers ever since she was little.
Art is Pleitez’s favorite subject and she specializes in drawings and paintings.
Each artist has their own reasons to draw that can affect the way that they find inspiration. Some people use what they, and others around them feel for their inspirations.
“I draw what I feel and drawing helps keep me happy,” said Rosita Dominguez, a 17 year-old senior.
Rosita said that her friends are what inspire her to draw and they sometimes will help her out with her drawings and to create new ideas when she cannot.
Rosita has been drawing ever since she began to learn how to write and is considering to one day work in either animation or as an illustrator for manga, Japanese comics.
Other artists will absorb what they watch every day, whether it’s the television or something on the internet, and mimic the characters and art styles that they see there.
Rebecca Velasco, a 15 year-old freshman, said she finds inspiration for her drawings from the videos that she watches on YouTube.
Rebecca has been drawing since she was about 8 years old, but the one day that she went on to YouTube and began to watch drawing tutorials is the day she found her inspiration.
“Drawing has been my whole life since I was a child,” Rebecca said. She also mentioned that even though drawing is important to her, she did stop for a while.
Currently Rebecca is drawing once again, and even has tried to draw her own manga. Rebecca said that she plans on one day becoming an artist and to sell her artwork to the public.
Pleitez said that the hardest part about art is trying it out for the first time and coming up with creative and original ideas for a single piece.
The path to success isn’t as smooth as it may be painted to appear, but these talented students are determined to pursue their dreams and continue to draw.
The motivation to draw and create works of art can come from anything, but the passion to continue to find it and improving their talent is what keeps these artists going.