Sahuaro’s prodigy art student: Seaira Rhodes. Something Seaira loves about Sahuaro is that she gets “to paint in every class without getting in trouble… well sometimes.”

Art is a huge passion of hers, which might be an understatement. With every chance she gets, Seaira is creating art from paintings to digital drawings. However, doing digital art is her favorite. She has been doing digital art for about three years. When first starting out she would use her finger to draw, which wasn’t quite successful. Now, she has upgraded to a stylist pen. The way Seaira creates her pieces is on a tablet that is connected to a drawing pad. Then, she uses the stylist pen on the drawing pad to view the drawing on the tablet. Art advice for beginners from Seaira: “With normal mediums focus on the basics… with digital art start off small and don’t get the most expensive tablets because the programs can be overwhelming.”

Music is something that she listens to when developing her pieces. It’s inspirational to her by helping her creativity; she listens to all genres, but mostly metal and sad songs.

Her current hobbies are watching tv and, obviously, creating art. Her favorite tv show is Lands of the Lustrous. Seaira is in love with horror films; her favorite would have to be The Thing. Speaking of horror, Seaira does special effects zombie makeup for Halloween, which is amazing. This has been mostly an annual tradition every Halloween since her 6th-grade year. She sometimes switches off some years with the costumes, but it almost always includes special effects makeup designs. There have been times where she did “crusty old-man” looks. When doing zombie looks, “I ask my friends how they think I died,” and she makes sure to make different zombie looks instead of keeping it the same. She does makeup the entire week of Halloween for different events that she goes to.

Studying fine arts at the University of Chicago is Seaira’s next step after high school. She hopes to “make connections into the art world… get a portfolio out there,” for her future calling is animation, art design, or art creation. She considers her biggest supporters as her mom and friends, as “they boost my ego by encouraging my art.” When asked if she couldn’t do art what would she do instead she said, “Without it…I don’t think I would have any hobbies.” She would be practically lost without it.