Hayden: So, I’m Hayden Stagg and I’m a person.
Rain: What grade are you in?
Hayden: I’m a sophomore, 10th grade.
Rain: What kind of art do you create?
Hayden: Most of the art I create is visual art, especially the murals that we painted in the school. Those are fun.
Rain: Why do you create art?
Hayden: It’s really fun and it give me a lot of expressive freedom, especially when we’re painting around the school. It helps me feel like I’m doing something productive for this school.
Rain: What is your main source of inspiration for the things that you create?
Hayden: A lot of my inspiration comes from my love of theater, especially with what we are doing right now, where we are painting one of the sets on the wall. Like, it just makes me feel like I am contributing something to the theater class instead of just my acting. Also, Margo (Wallace) is a huge inspiration for me. She’s a really good painter and she helped me become a much better painter last year.
Rain: Who is your most idolized artist? Why?
Hayden: Probably Margo just because, well first of all she’s a really good person and she’s really nice. And she’s a really, really good artist and she’s gotten me a lot of resources to get better at my art when I was feeling really bad about it.
Rain: Describe your most prized piece of art?
Hayden: I think for me my most prized piece of art is this drawing that I did for Dillon's class where we had to trace out a picture of ourselves and I really love the picture in general and then I think it’s the only good drawing of myself that I've ever done even if it was a tracing. It took me a lot of time and it had a lot of problems, like all art. But, I think that the amount of time just shows how much effort I was willing to put into it because
I cared so much about it.
Rain: Describe your process of creating your art.
Hayden: Well, it varies from piece to piece, but the process for creating the murals, which is my favorite kind of art is that: First we’ll look up a bunch of reference images and figure out which one works best. Then we’ll either project it onto whatever we’re painting or just get like, get an idea and do a tracing of it on the walls with pencils, which is really difficult sometimes. And then we start to do the outline. Then we go in with the base colors. And once we have all the base colors down we start doing all the shading and fun stuff in there.
Rain: What are some helpful tips you have for aspiring artists?
Hayden: Don’t be afraid to ask people for help, when you’re struggling with your art. Even if you think your art is really bad, it’s always better than you think it is and there are always resources that you can find, especially on social media . You can find a lot of great artists and they're willing to help you with things. Even if it’s just little tips with artwork.