From an acrylic drawing of an owl to a colorful, notorious square piece of Kanye West, senior Sammi Branshaw creates a variety of mixed media art here at GHS.

Sammi is currently enrolled in AP art but has been taking a variety of art classes all four years of high school.  “The first one I ever took was Studio art and the year after that I took 2D design and the year after that I took graphic design and now AP,” Sammi said.

Sammi has a talent of stepping out

of her comfort zone and trying different mediums of art. “I do acrylic a lot. I like watercolors. I really like doing mixed media, I like doing graphite pencil. I really want to use pastels at some time,” Sammi said.

Sammi’s first inspiration for her art and love of art came from her grandpa. “He used to put me in his studio downstairs and we would  do art together.”

However, Sammi strives to find her own style in art, which is one of her biggest influences when creating art.

“What inspires me also is other artists because there are so many people that make so many unique things.. like Vincent Van Gogh you can always tell when it’s his” Sammi said. “I want people to look at my art and say ‘Oh, that’s Sammi.’”

As a step towards finding her own personalized style, Sammi created a notorious painting.

“The coolest piece I’ve ever done, but looking back I think it looks really bad, but I love my Kanye West piece,” Sammi said.

Her painting of Kanye West was displayed at the Art Show last year and gained a lot of attention.

The AP art students are constantly working on different projects in order to complete their portfolio that is turned in at the end of the year as their final grade.

“I am currently working on fisheye of me in Joe Bryza’s glasses,” Sammi said.

Sammi plans to continue to be involved with art past high school.

“I think I want to double major or minor in Studio Art,” Sammi said, “I really want to do international relations because I love to travel and I think one day as a career I could maybe sell art from different museums.” Art is more than drawing pictures for fun to Sammi.

“I think that it [art] is

a great pastime, it’s a stress reliever, and just a good way to express yourself,” Sammi said.

Art has had a positive impact on Sammi’s life therefore, she would encourage anyone to try to take art.

“I think there is actually a lot of people in school that don’t think they would be good at art or have even tried art but they can do any type of art.” Sammi said, “Everyone should take art it’s only one semester so what could go wrong?”