A high school artist’s reflection

As an artist, there’s always opportunities to make art in many different mediums, and there are hundreds of other mediums out there, both in traditional and digital. I have personally been drawing with pencil on paper for as long as I can remember, but it wasn’t until more recent years when I began to gain more of an appreciation for other art mediums. I finally started to branch out into other mediums and expand my abilities beyond just simple sketching. However, even after all these years, I still enjoy basic pencil and paper sketching, so let me tell you about the different ways that I have made art and the many programs and mediums I have used.

Starting first and foremost with the basics, is pencil and paper. Ever since I even knew how to draw, I was always drawing traditionally. As a kid I would always grab as much printer paper as I could and a stack of pencils and doodle away for hours. While I was never the best artist or respectful of the rules of being an artist like composition and anatomy, I still enjoyed the process of drawing and creating cartoons on paper. As I got older, I got more accustomed to the method of traditional drawing and began to flesh out my own unique style, and began to work more both in the traditional method, and the digital method as well. 

Getting older introduced me to the method of “digital art,” where I could scan in my traditional drawings through a picture to an art software program, and then add digital coloring and lining. This process certainly took me a while to get used to, as it was essentially drawing the same thing twice, but as I did it more and more, and developed my skills further, it became my preferred method of drawing. With my digital art, I still try to keep a sense of “cartoonish-ness” in my drawings; creating something expressive that someone could view and enjoy upon first glance. However, traditional and digital cartoon drawing isn’t the only thing I am capable of, as I am familiar with another medium through Photoshop editing.

Everyone and their grandmother has heard of Photoshop before, and for a good reason. It’s arguably the most versatile picture-editing software out there, and has been around for years and used by millions of people across the world every day. I have only recently started using Photoshop in the last year, as most of my summer class in Intro to Digital Art was focused on using pictures and editing them through Photoshop. Even after the class was over, I still wanted to do more with Photoshop, and I didn’t want to let my talent go to waste. Over the summer, I watched tutorials on how to create posters, and create graphic design logos. While I am still learning, I hope I can continue to improve and further my abilities.

While I initially started off with one medium, I slowly grew to appreciate and use more artistic outlets and mediums. Growing my abilities has taught me that it’s okay to leave my comfort zone, and that going outside of said comfort zone can help me to become an even better artist than I would be inside of my comfort zone. I have been an artist for many years, and I don’t see myself dropping art anytime soon, and I hope to continue my passion for years to come.

Jackson Reichardt is a junior member of the Multimedia Journalism class.