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That's the way the cookie crumbles, I suppose.

I’d call it a hobby.
Matthew Luper
I was born and raised in Galesburg, Illinois, and I’ve never lived anywhere but. As a child, I grew up watching cartoons, playing video games, and drawing. I remember at a very early age drawing a city in the night on my friend’s drawing board. Even though I was never super serious about it, it’s always been a nice pastime.
I may not be the most hardcore artist, and I don’t know what painter painted what famous painting, or what year any era of art was in. I’m not in art club, my art hasn’t been in any shows, I haven’t won any awards. I haven’t even taken that many art classes! For me, at this point in my life, art is more of a hobby.
Growing up, I’d always look forward to Art Class in elementary school. I wasn’t very good compared to the other students, but I just really liked making things that were kind of neat to look at. I guess I just really like to create something that people can look at, and everyone can get a different bit of emotion from. Even in those days, I was creating comics. Going to Baskin-Robbins one day, I got a pink plastic spoon figure, with a face and bendable arms. From that, I started my own mini comic, which I still have to this day, and I go back and reread (typos and all).
Getting into Middle School, I found myself beginning to draw on my papers, and by the time I was in eighth grade, I was getting marked off for having too many doodles all around my work. I carried a sketchbook around, and even though my skills weren’t that great, I kept drawing, and I think in that time, I gained some good knowledge on how to better myself in the future if I go further into art. I made more comics in my sketchbook and would let my friends read them. They weren’t the best looking, and the plots weren’t that funny, but they were amusing, and a good way to pass the class time, when there was nothing else to do.
When I got into High School, I started to draw more comics. They started off as time passers while class was boring, but then I stopped doing work to draw them. They were amusing, and I think that someday I might like to get into making comics, but at this point, I’m still unsure. It would also be fun to create cartoons, or some sort of an animated series, or a video game franchise, because I’ve always liked the idea of making characters and being able to see them come to life on a TV.
I may not be the best at doing realistic art, or painting, using oils, pastels, watercolors, pottery, or a lot of other medias, but I think I just need more practice. I haven’t had the time to take many art classes in high school, but I think that it may be something I’d like to pursue further on in life.
I recently took a computer art class at the high school, and found that I love to make abstract pictures using that. I’m thinking about looking into graphic design, because I really like working on the computer. (I can undo my mistakes!)
One of the most satisfying parts of art is showing it off. This may seem a bit pompous, but I just really like to see and hear people’s reactions to what I’ve made. Everything in life inspires an emotion; no matter how big or how small.