Purple, Green and Blue: Early art from 1996

I took my first drawing classes at Grossmont Community College in Spring 1996. I have always drawn and painted, but I started to feel like I wanted to learn more about perspective and channeling creativity in a more advanced way than just doing it on my own. Doing art on your own is wonderful, and a vital way to explore your inner workings, but sometimes being challenged by someone A.) who exists outside our realm of previous existence and B.) is experienced / accomplished in the field that you want to study, is a powerful way learn and grow as an artist / human. Also, sometimes being challenged to explore life outside of your own comfort zone is the best way to grow as a human. I knew that my personal experiences fresh out of high school were incredibly limited by the culture and environment in which I grew up, and I needed to expand outside of that. Taking art classes was one way of challenging myself to expand and push my own experiences.

In 1996, I was fresh out of high school and eager to soak up as much knowledge about the world as I could. That, and I wanted to balance out my class load of general education courses with something fun and creative. So I decided to take a drawing class to learn more about perspective and improve my basic drawing skills.

So, fast-forward to the present. I had left all of my art at my dad's house. He recently did a huge purge and got rid of many, many of our old items at the house. My brother had the foresight to save my art folder and brought it to his house for me. These are a few of the pieces he saved for me.