Christal Carter Creative Arts Scholarship

Since I was 4 years old, I have wanted to illustrate children’s books. I am the proud older sister of seven rambunctious younger siblings, so my life has been filled with opportunities to explore and study children. I draw my siblings, I write about my siblings, I listen to their stories and I look at their drawings. My brothers and sisters have been the inspiration for much of the subject matter in my art. Therefore, I have experience drawing and painting children as they run outside, climb trees, blow out birthday cake candles or brush their teeth before bed. As an illustrator, I could explore these familiar, household scenes on an unfamiliar level, bringing joy to the next generation of children by capturing glimpses into another child's life. Unlike many of my peers, I prefer traditional painting and drawing to modern digital art methods because I thrive on the tactility of different art media. I love the solid, concrete weightiness of an oil paintbrush against my hand. I need to feel the textured scrape and scratch of charcoal on paper. These things are lost in the flat world of digital art. As an illustrator of children’s picture books, I would be able to harness the tangible, earthy qualities of traditional art to create pictures that delight children and inspire them to create their own artwork in turn. But painting and drawing are not my only preferred media, for in recent years I discovered that I also love to write. I believe that art and stories are intimately connected, because art is itself a language and stories are themselves a form of art. Both fields require an artist who can sympathize with human emotions, experiences and desires, and discern how to effectively express those in either words or pictures. When this epiphanic moment struck me, I realized that my career goal was two-fold: I hope to both write and illustrate my own picture books. Every artist is inspired by artists from the past, and I am no exception. I have been inspired by other children’s book authors who both wrote and illustrated many of their own picture books, including David Small, Brock Cole, Maurice Sendak, and Tomie dePaola. I love the work of these brilliant artists; they understand the harmonic connections and the essential differences between words and pictures. A picture book illustrated by its author is unique, because the pictures and the words harmonize with each other. I hope to achieve this level of harmony in my own artwork and stories. I would be so blessed with the opportunity to pursue my training as an artist and learn to illustrate picture books for children. The children in my life, including my many siblings, have made my life rich with laughter and humor, and I would love to enrich the lives of the next generation of children by creating beautiful picture books.