Manta Ray Beach, colored pencil
Anna Isabel Mejia Contreras
York School | Senior
I have always deeply enjoyed creating art. Drawing is a very important part of my life, and it is a hobby that calms me when I am stressed. I often look to art as a form of storytelling and a way to express myself or a situation at hand. I am fascinated by how art can tell stories through both a single picture or through a billion frames in a single animation. Nowadays, creating art is a comforting constant in my life and something I can always look forward to and improve upon.
I work with both colored pencil and acrylic paint. Drawing has always come more naturally to me than painting, but I am excited to continue learning how to improve my skills in new media.
My current portfolio, that I am working on, focuses on the relationship animals have with nature and vice-versa. The animals and habitat come from our local environment in Monterey County. My art often includes themes of animals and landscapes, mixing them together so that they are one. This can be figurative or literal, where I will draw the animal as the landscape itself. In my Manta Ray Beach piece for example, this is shown by the manta ray ocean, and its interactions with its surroundings. Animals, like nature, have certain personalities, and I enjoy finding ways to express the motion or convey the expression of a certain animal, and compare it to the one we see in its natural habitat.