Laasya Mamidipalli

Junior Shannon Xie paints on a sheet of plastic hung from the ceiling. She said she likes doing both digital and traditional painting, with her traditional art pieces being mainly oil and acrylic paintings.

How would you describe your style?

I don’t really do realism anymore, now that I have more free reign so what I like to draw, so I go for more of an illustrative style that’s kind of semi-realistic. It depends on what I’m doing.

How did you get started with art?

(When) I was little, I liked doodling a lot, but then I started taking art more seriously once I got into high school because I was like, ‘I like doing this, so I’m gonna try to be better at it,’ so then I started doing more studies and just trying to draw more.

Do you consider your art a career?

No, it’s kind of just for fun. I started doing commissions sometime in middle school, I think like seventh grade, but even now I’m laying pretty low in commissions because I’m trying to focus on school and stuff, so it’s kind of just when I feel like it. I used to make people little logo designs and then now, it’s mainly just I’ll draw their characters or a person, and that’s about it.

Is art something you’d want to pursue as a career?

I do want to pursue it to some higher degree just so I can feel like I’ve accomplished something with it, instead of just feeling (like) I threw it away. It is something you can do as a hobby and still do it professionally without training, but I’d like to pursue illustration alongside some science field.

Are your school art pieces and personal art pieces different?

This year, they’re definitely merging together more, which I’m really happy about. Definitely in my freshman year and middle school, the assignments were very clear cut and strict, and even if I could have some control over what I was doing, it definitely wasn’t what I would draw for myself.

What do you think about before starting to draw?

I like drawing wacky subjects—very surreal stuff—and I like colors. I don’t like when people say, “I hate using this color in my art. This is just tangent,” but it’s just like no. The way that a color works is (that) it depends on what colors you’re pairing it with, so any color looks nice if you use the right palette.

Have you ever studied color theory?

I freaking love color theory. I’ve never taken a color theory class or anything, but we’ve covered it briefly in our classes, and I’m trying to work on my color theory. I really like colors. I love colors so much. I hated when we had to do black-and-white projects. I love color.

What softwares do you use for your digital art?

I really like Procreate, but I also use a Wacom tablet with Photoshop occasionally whenever I feel like I want to pull it out and set it up.

How did you learn how to use them?

Trial and error. I don’t get how people use a stylus with an iPad because an iPad is a finger touch thingy, so I draw with my finger on an iPad but obviously a stylus for the tablet, so you learn by going. because learning those overlay layers and the effect layers, those were so fun to play with.

Gallery • 6 Photos

Laasya Mamidipalli

According to Xie, the prompt for this piece was "something abstract," and she said she wanted to do something "gooey." "I like this one because I went through a mushroom phase where I really liked drawing mushrooms," Xie said.