Welcome back to this week’s Green Level artist feature! This week’s star student is Charlize Andrews, who is also a writer on the site. Charlize is a freshman at Green Level. She describes herself as a “very creative person,” which is why she also loves reading and writing! She’s a hardworking student who’s constantly starting a new novel, working on a new art project, or painting a new acrylic piece.

Charlize has been drawing since she was a baby and painting from as young as four years old. “My mother went to an art school for 6 years in Ukraine, and she is how I learned to do art,” she said. In the years since then, she’s improved drastically with many style changes. She’s gone from sketches to painting to anime styles to digital art, and now more recently canvas paintings and resin. She also paints metal miniatures for her Dungeons and Dragons games. Her ability to learn quickly has helped her improve at many things at an amazing rate!

Although Charlize enjoys many forms of art, she’s especially fond of painting. “I love painting on canvases with acrylic paint, and also painting objects and furniture,” she says. One of her most recent projects was a large bookshelf with two contrasting images–snow-capped mountains in the night and a forest with red skies, connected by the word “dream.” It’s impressive how Charlize can work on huge or minuscule surfaces, such as her large paintings and small D&D figurines. 

When asked if she had any advice for other student artists, Charlize told them to experiment without being afraid to mess it all up. “Try something new from time to time, and practice for weeks and weeks. No art is impossible. It just takes practice, and too many people give up. If nobody gave up, many more artists would be out in the world,” she says. Her positive attitude, beautiful art, and many skills are just proof that her mindset works!

Thank you to Charlize Andrews for her interview. If you would like to recommend yourself or another student for our artist spotlights, please email [email protected].