I really enjoy doing art, it gives me a sense of relaxation. If I need something to help me relax, I can go and draw a flower or something that would ease my mind. It’s like when you see a sleeping puppy: that brings a smile to your face. Art for me is kind of a relaxation method, or even just something to make myself happy. It honestly depends on my mood. I think it’s easier to make themes in your art depending on how you’re feeling. Say, if you’re sad, it might be easier to create a rainy background or a rainy, gloomy day. If you’re happy, it’s easier to create something like Disneyland, a sunny park, or a blooming flower.

Mainly, my whole life I’ve been practicing more animal-based arts ranging more around dogs, wolves, [and] cats — those “easier” starter animals. As a child, I grew up around having lots of pets and loving animals. They would give me inspiration to draw them, so I started with my pets and then my friends’ pets, and then eventually from that I went on to famous pets or pets I’d see on National Geographic. I’ve been trying to branch off of them into more advanced designs, [like] dragons and mythical creatures, just to get a feel and hopefully expand my art, so that if I were to pursue this as a career, then it would make it easier to suit other people’s interests. I could branch [my art] out to other customers, and not just do certain things.

When I start a piece, I make sure to think of what I want this piece to show emotionally, what I am hoping for people to recognize when I make this piece, and what emotions I am hoping to create from this piece. So, I mainly focus on facial expressions or the time of day, like weather. [In fact], watching seasons change is something that’s inspired me face-to-face. For instance, just watching the pink spring blossoms bloom from the trees, just slowly watching it open more and then die away is really interesting and shows how fast life passes.

One of [my idols] would definitely be my friend Anna. She’s really good at what she does, and it really inspires me to continue to practice and hopefully be as good as her someday. Also, there’s some Instagram, Tumblr, and DeviantArt artists who are very skilled in what they do. They make me want to improve and hopefully get up to their level because if they do commissions, they get a lot more funds from it [and] because people find their art more pleasing. I [also learned from] Van Gogh: a lot of my inspirations for my art came from him because even though it’s pretty generic, he’s really good at what he did, and it’s very pleasing to see his kind of background and works and stuff like that.

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve noticed there’s things you can do to make art easier for yourself. For example, if you’re starting an animal, make sure that you do the base first before you just go right into lining and coloring. Thinking out anatomy-wise, like a dog’s paws: it’s not just a little stump, it’s actually a lot more advanced than that. But obviously, as you first start, drawing slowly grows easier to actually get into that kind of stuff. Thus, you shouldn’t push yourself right away to go for an amazing paw, you should just start with what you think is best and then eventually you will learn how to slowly increase the skill.

Probably my biggest challenge would be not liking what I’m making. For example, if I made something, and I didn’t like it, I would frustrated to the point where I wouldn’t do it anymore. That would really set me off and make me not want to continue. Seeing how other people didn’t give up pushed me to keep going.

This is something that I really enjoy and that I really try to do to put a smile on people’s faces. [I want to] show them that art is something meant to be happy. It shouldn’t be something that brings you down because you feel like you’re not as good as others. It should make you feel happy that you’re able to create something like this, because it gives other people inspiration to try and do what you’re doing. Hearing that people like your art or are inspired by you or wanna be as good as you one day, that’s a really good feeling. When I hear that, it makes me really happy because it makes me feel like I’m accomplishing something really good and I’m showing people that if you really want to do something, you really should because you won’t regret it in the end.

So, you should try [art], because if you do and you like it, you might become one of those amazing painters or you might have your art in the museum when you’re older. It may not seem like it now, but you don’t know, it could happen, and hopefully that’s what’ll happen to me as long as I keep pushing and trying and improving myself slowly every day.

Interview by Axel Perales