Senior Artist Features

From his constant sketching to his award-winning portrait piece now hanging in the offices of Northwest, senior Kobe Patterson has already made a strong impression with his art. During his art career through Waukee, Patterson has shown his multifaceted talents in art through both traditional and digital art. He can be found creating ceramics, inking a new character into his sketchbook, and designing new art pieces, but more recently he has taken a particular liking to painting. Patterson stated, “In especially watercolor, just watching the brush flow is just amazing to me and the fact you can mix and create all sorts of colors and shades makes the art pop a lot more than it would normally without.” Patterson came to love art from a young age, finding it an easy way to relax and have fun. This simple reason for his admiration for art does not stop him from meticulously practicing and perfecting his art. Patterson explained, one of the biggest parts of the process is simply continuing to try and try again, a simple but powerful way for any aspiring artist to improve. When finishing his talk, Patterson had an important message for anyone who is pursuing art or any passion in their life. He stated, “For everyone out there just do the thing you love, don’t be motivated by any other external force, by what you want to do, do what makes you happy and that will usually make life a lot more easy to handle.” While Patterson has no inherent plans for the future, it is clear that he plans to continue to work and improve his already impressive artistic abilities.

Alicyn Vogel has already made a notable presence in the art community of Northwest High School through their unique mix of mediums. Vogel initially got into the field of art as a simple fun hobby, but after discovering the complex nature of painting and the wide option of colors at her disposal, she quickly began to explore art more. While practicing her art skills through school, she found inspiration not only from new art content online but also from the work of old impressionist artists such as Monet and Picasso. Her appreciation of impressionism can be seen in one of her most recent and favorite pieces, a recreation of Van Gogh’s The Starry Night. In a similar vein to these artists, she began to paint based on her interests and her environment. Vogel explained, “[My art] is just based on the pictures I take a lot of the time or the music I listen to.” This often explains the realism elements of her paintings, often taken directly from her photographs. This talent for photography and art is already well established, with Vogel having already previously won a Burb 2022 award for her altered photograph, Wandering Thoughts. As Vogel discussed, one of the most important parts of art is for someone to simply create art when they feel inspired and excited to do it, not when they feel forced to. She explained, “I definitely take a lot of time, if I don’t feel like being creative that day I am not going to force myself to work on [my art], I feel that is not going to make the piece how I want it to be.” With this in mind, Vogel plans to continue using their skills in more future art projects that will likely show up in many showcases this year.

Sarah Kapustka has already been involved in many different creative fields, most notably, her involvement in the International Thespian Society. However, one of her strongest talents lies in her artistic pursuits. Having already been established as a 2022 Burb Award winner with her watercolor piece Something Lurking in the Water, she plans to continue creating new pieces as she heads into her senior year. As Kapustka stated, her art inspiration came in fifth grade, when the art from her classmates got her interested in the process of creating new art. They very soon found a strong connection to both digital art and painting. She explained, “If you make a mistake, instead of having to erase it, you can just go over it or click the back button.” Kapustka’s practice of art leads to their style, filled with a fun mixture of cartoon features, often present in her human characters, while also at times leaning into realism, many times seen in her backgrounds. Kapustka’s art is self-described as varied, pieces can range from taking an hour, to taking much longer. This is also present in themes, from simple concepts of seasons, such as a harvest moon piece she is currently working on, to ideas of activism and symbolic concepts. These themes are often portrayed as humans in her pieces, from ideas of human manipulation to ideas of social outcasts such as the painting she is pictured holding, The Fallen Angel Lucifer. But at the end of the day, she believes the most important concept for an artist is practice. As she explained that can be as complex as studying anatomy. She stated, “Just working on [art] constantly and giving it time.”  Kapustka plans to continue creating her unique style of art, with her new art pieces likely to appear in and around the school all year long.