ORIGINALLY WRITTEN JANET HAMOUS
“I draw all the time,” said Goessel High School art student Ryun Lawrence. “I carry a pen with me and draw wherever.
“I tried painting, but I focus on using pen and pencil,” he said. “You can carry all the stuff you need right in your pocket. It is so much easier.”
Goessel art teacher Brian Stucky has been impressed with Lawrence’s work.
“He’s done some really interesting pen and ink drawings,” Stucky said. “He grew up here and then left and came back.”
Lawrence, a junior, drives to school from his home in Newton every day. When his family moved from Goessel to Newton, he tried school there but found he missed the smaller school. He enjoys the environment at Goessel where everyone knows everyone else and students get a lot of individual attention.
“I still wanted to go to school here,” he said.
Surprisingly, this is Lawrence’s first year in a high school art class.
“We’ve always had art classes, but I didn’t take high school art classes until this year,” he said. “I have drawn my whole life, but I never considered art seriously as a career until I got into high school.”
Lawrence said he is planning a career in the field of illustration, perhaps illustrating children’s story books.
“I like drawing creatures and organic-type living things,” he said, “not necessarily realistic creatures.”
Although he has a few months before he needs to apply to schools, he is already making plans.
“I want to go to art college, perhaps the Chicago Art Institute,” he said.
Lawrence said entrance to art school is based on a student’s test scores, grades, recommendations and a portfolio.
“Chicago has a minimum of 15 pieces (in the portfolio),” he said.
Lawrence currently is in a directed-study art class that allows him to work on projects of his own choosing.
“I am working on my art and putting together a portfolio for art school,” he said.
Lawrence’s work is drawn with a fine tool and is quite detailed. He said it “took more hours than I can count” to do a drawing he recently completed using a “very fine Sharpie.”
Lawrence is also getting ready for an upcoming art contest. He just wishes he could spend more time in the art room.
Many of Lawrence’s finished art pieces hang in his room at home or around his house.
“But some I give away to friends and family,” he said.
Artistic talent may run in Lawrence’s family.
“My older brother is a really good artist,” he said. “He likes to draw, and Mom has artistic skill and she writes poetry.”
So where does Lawrence get the ideas for the unrealistic creatures contained in his work?
“Ideas just come out of my head,” he said. “I am not sure where they come from.”
