A journey through the mind of an artist

In today’s online world, choosing a career path can be a hard decision. However, it can be an exciting and rewarding career for artists when it involves their passion.

Image by Skitterphoto via Pexel

Passion is what makes artists create. Keeping their passion alive is also one of the ingredients to success. As Steve Jobs once said, “People with passion can change the world.”

Louie Grace Ibarra shares her inspiration and journey as an artist. She is currently taking up AB Communications. The 21-year-old artist desires to communicate with purpose through her art.

Louie Grace Ibarra via Facebook

Ibbara has always been drawn to creating dolls and toys out of scraps or things she finds interesting around. She started getting more interested in drawing when her friend Ryzen showed her a bunch of anime drawings of Dragon Ball in elementary. That is when she began scribbling anime characters and things she sees around.

In her 4th grade, Ibbara was chosen to compete in the school newspaper as an editorial cartoonist. Sadly, she did not win but that did not stop her from picking up her pencil to draw again.

Today, Ibarra is more into digital graphic arts than traditional drawing. She finds it much easier as it offers a wide variety of options and settings to choose from, plus she likes that it is budget-friendly; not having to spend a lot on actual art tools and materials.

Artwork by Louie Grace Ibarra via Instagram

There are many kinds of arts, and each uses a different medium to express itself. Ibarra considers the art style she likes doing is semi-realism and pop art. She likes vibrant striking colors with minimal subjects on canvas. She states that she does portraits and protest arts as well.

According to Ibarra, she feels elevated every time she creates art. “There is always that certain jumpy heightened feeling, not always knowing how it is going to end,” she says, “the process is always exciting, it thrills me to what extent of creativity I could put to it to make my vision into art.”

Some artists can interpret music through their art. It helps them transform the marks on their canvas while listening to music; Ibarra, on the other hand, usually listens to music before trying to create or draw something. She explained that the songs she chooses depend on what she is presently feeling, so in that way, it gives her a certain mood and emotions to lay what she is feeling on the blank canvas.

Artwork by Louie Grace Ibarra via Instagram

As an artist, one of the best ways of finding inspiration is looking at other artists’ work and learning from them. Ruth Mora is a comic artist and illustrator based in California. Her art is more of a pop-punk vintage art style with dark humor comic captions. “I super love her art style! I feel like she captures the style of art she wanted to be doing as well,” Ibbara said.

Artwork by Ruth Mora via Ponyboy Magazine

Morgan Harper Nicolas is an artist and a poet. Her motivational words are also what kept Ibarra positive with her unending self-doubts as an artist, as Nicolas quotes, “May you tell the story of the mountains you climbed. May the wisdom you gather help others survive.”

The advice she can give to people as they embark on their career as an artist is to always embrace the process. “Acknowledge the fact that there are good days and bad days, it is okay to be unproductive and feel uninspired sometimes because that is where you give space for growth,” she says, “it is good to surround yourself with supportive people that motivate you to be better and appreciates your improvement.”

The path to success as an artist is challenging. According to Ibarra, going out and exploring new things can bring a lot of new ideas and inspiration. “And the most important thing of all: compete only with yourself. Seek validation internally, you will never please anyone.”

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