Tell us a little bit about your journey as a young and developing artist.

I watched a lot of cartoons as a kid. A lot of my friends were into Anime, so I started drawing a lot. I started giving my drawings to people as gifts, and then I just kept doing it for fun. I always really liked writing, and I’d make a comic book, but then I needed pictures. I also like D&D, and enjoy drawing my own characters. 

Which has been your favorite project to work on at One River and why?

Probably the Emoji Project we did in my digital project, or… maybe the one where I turned One Piece characters into Drag Queens. It was one of my digital projects. It was, um, you had to redraw a panel, or a page, from a manga and I chose One Piece. It was the first time I had done a digital comic, cause usually I had done it on paper. So it was my first time, and I had a lot of fun coloring and drawing a digital comic. 

Describe One River in 3 words and tell us why

Art, fun, project. ‘Cause One River is an art school and you do a lot of projects at this art school! (…And usually the projects are very fun!)

What would you tell people who’ve never dabbled in art making are the real benefits to trying it?

The benefits are probably like, sometimes it calms you down. Sometimes it doesn’t, but usually it does! I might be angry while making art, but then I’m calm after. 

Also, It can help you visualize things, especially if you have a hard time telling something about something.. you can just draw it. Especially when you get really good, you can just do it fast! If you have any friends that like to write stories, they will appreciate if you learn art so you can draw pictures for their stories. Sometimes it’s so hard to describe something. You can include all the little details and they’ll notice the details without you telling them.