Meet sophomore Evelyn Brenes as she talks about her experience creating her artwork called “A Classic Memory” for the district competition. Her piece was one of only eight in the district chosen to represent Humble ISD at the TASA/TASB conference and is being showcased as part of the Texas Art Education Association art exhibit. 

Q: Can you tell me more about the art competition that you entered into?

A: The art competition. I’ve never joined this art competition before. And my art teacher thought it would be like a good opportunity for me.

Q: What kind of artwork Did you submit?

A: I submitted a colored like pencil, like surrealism piece, with a watercolor kind of background. 

Q: What inspired your piece?

A: What inspired this piece was a memory of me and my dad and my little sister, because we would go to this lake that was by her house, and we would always go during the sunsets and there would be ducks.

Q: What was the most challenging part of working on your piece?

A: The most challenging was to finish it by the deadline, because I only had a week to do it. 

Q: Did your piece go as planned?

A: It did until I got the background started and I felt like I messed it up, but I kind of fixed it.

Q: Would you do anything different with it? If you could?

 A: I would definitely fix the water because it’s like the ducks in like water. I would like to make it look more smooth.

Q: What was your favorite part about your piece?

A: Definitely the duck and like doing all the feathers. Are ducks one of your favorite animals? Yeah, it’s one of my favorite animals. I really like ducks.

Q: How does your piece reflect you as an artist?

A: It reflects me. It’s really colorful. And it’s not exactly meant to be realistic, which is something I really like to do. It’s very surrealistic.

A: Why did you choose the name of classical memory?

A: Because it’s just such a classic cliché memory to have to feed ducks at the pond. 

Q: How do you hope that people kind of react to that? Do you kind of wish that they kind of see how intimate it is?

A: I do wish they could see how it’s really close to my heart and it’s like a nice memory that I always remember.

Q: How does representing the district make you feel?

A: A little nerve racking. I’m a little nervous.

Q: Does the fact that your piece is so personal to you kind of change the way that you kind of hoped for it to win or kind of change the way that you felt just submitting it into an art competition? 

A: It really did. Because I put so much into this piece emotionally and physically since I worked so hard on it that I really wanted to get far. 

Q: What are your kind of hopes and what do you hope for your piece?

A: A lot of people like you connect with it like it.

Q: What are your expectations for yourself as an artist continuing on?

A: My expectation is to never like to stop doing art and never really like to not necessarily pick an art style but just go with who I am as a person.

Q: Do you want your artwork to change or to develop? 

A: I am happy with where I am but I do want to keep experimenting to get better.

Q: Why do you create art?

A: I create art because it’s always been, it sounds so cliché, it’s been a part of who I am but my little sister does art. My dad likes doing art. The only one that doesn’t really like doing art is my mom but she always enjoys seeing my art. 

Q: Are you close with your dad because I know this piece is somewhat about him. Did he get you into art like?

A: Yeah, he kind of did like he’s always been like they’re like cheering me on and  saying that I’m such a great artist and just like never letting me give me the same with my mom. But yeah, I’m really close to my dad.

Q: Do you think that relationship with your dad has helped you become a better artist?

A: I would say, yeah, it has like the relationship with like, anyone in my family has helped me get better with art.