I first realized that art was going to be an important part of my life from a very young age. When I was in kindergarten, we did a watercolor painting of a garden with butterflies, and every kindergartner made the same one. After we were finished, they were put up in the district-wide art show. While I was at the art show, my teacher stopped me and told me that out of every student in my grade, my piece stood out the most, and was the winner for the best project. Even though I was little, I realized that I had talent and realized how much I loved art, along with how much I wanted to use that talent to make amazing things. Most of the artwork that I've done focuses on realism. I’m a perfectionist, and it tends to come out through my artwork. I’ll work and rework a piece until, to me, it looks realistic enough. I feel that my best work is done when I paint, but I also love to draw. My favorite medium to work with when painting is oil paints, and when drawing I really like to work with charcoal. With oils, I love how vibrant the colors are, and I love how it doesn’t dry out right away. It really allows you to blend colors well and make a flow nicely, I feel. With charcoal, I like how smoothly it goes down on the paper, and how well they blend. There can be very distinct white and black within a piece, but at the same time you can have all of the different gray shades in between the two. I love how, if they’re used well and carefully, charcoals can make a drawing look like a painting. I plan majoring in graphic design, so I am going to continue to do artwork even into my career. Art has always been a huge part of my life and something I’ve always gravitated towards, so I knew that whatever I wanted to do with my life had to involve it in some way. Art has always been something that has been comforting for me, and has been away for me to express feelings I wouldn’t otherwise share with people.