Eleanor Roosevelt High school has many classes that focus on art, as well as an art club that came together last year to create a mural for the school! The article for that mural is linked here. There are many students that show talent in the many forms of art even beyond these classes. Three of these student artists that mostly did visual 2D art and were now challenging themselves by taking the Advanced Placement class AP Studio Art 2D were willing to meet up for an interview about their art journeys and give some advice for beginner artists.
One question that most people can think of when they meet an artist is, ‘how long have they been doing art?’ For these artists, it’s been quite some time. Alem Adams, a senior at Roosevelt, said he had been doing art for “as long as I can remember.” He stated that he had always “enjoyed doing art and creating things.” For his classmates Marilyn Phan, a junior at Roosevelt, and Emma Cantwell, another senior at Roosevelt, they had similar experiences. Art was something they had been doing for a long time.
When you’re doing art for so long, a question must be asked. How do these student artists keep going? Marylin’s response to this question was that “it’s calming,” and that “art is always subjective [so] there’s no right or wrong.” Alem’s reasoning was different. He stated that he has aphantasia, which makes him unable to visualize things in his head. Due to this, he said the ideas he may have and can’t visualize, he’ll “put them on paper instead.”
But no matter how many reasons there may be to continue doing art, there can still be many reasons to quit, right? These students have definitely felt like doing so before. Marilyn had stated feeling like quitting sometimes. But then, as stated by her “I remember art is so vast.” She remembers how many paths there are when it comes to art and she feels more comfortable staying on her path.
Emma had also stated thinking about quitting, a lot in fact. She said “last year it was just hard for me… sophomore year I had a lot of work and I just couldn’t keep up. And I didn’t have an art class, so I essentially had no work to draw.” She added that she thinks of quitting art as a career path, but doesn’t think she could ever stop completely doing art. For Alem, although not really feeling like quitting like the two other students, he still struggled with comparing himself to other artists which has made it sometimes difficult to continue.
Despite at times feeling like quitting, these artists keep going. And they have some advice for beginner artists! A piece of advice they had all mentioned was to keep going, especially if its something you like doing and even when you think it doesn’t look as good as it could be. It’s all about practice!
Adding on to that, Alem had suggested to use references. “People will tell you not to use references because it’s copying and it’s cheating. It’s not.” Another thing Emma had added on was to use youtube tutorials, since they are always helpful.
Happy art making!
