Rebecca Fuqua

My name is Rebecca Fuqua. I am writing this to tell you about my journey as an artist. I was inspired to draw at seven years old because of my fascination with animated female characters. Anything from Anastasia and Disney's Atlantis to The Little Mermaid captivated me. There was something so beautiful in the form of these characters! I knew immediately that I wanted to create my own princess. Because of this inspiration I took art classes at school seriously. I savored every bit of information I could about drawing and painting. With that inspiration thriving in me I continued to hunger to do art. The biggest factor that pulled me into art was meeting a family member who was also an artist. I would speak to him every holiday as he would sketch out pictures of everyone around him. His name was Sonny and he was my first mentor. Sonny introduced me to my favorite painters one of them is Van Gogh. I acquired many more favorite painters as time went on. I took advanced art in high school and I learned how to blend realism with abstraction. I took my inspiration from my Disney princesses to create advanced portraits of both men and women. With this new inspiration I even earned an award for a 3-Dimensional Mixed Media project. That year a buyer fell in love with one of my characters and I sold my first portrait. After high school I decided that I wanted to pursue a career as an artist. I decided to major in the visual arts at Owensboro Community and Technical College. I spent seven years there. I took a lot of different classes including photography and sculpture. College was a wonderful opportunity for me to become a stronger artist. I met likeminded people and even went to a modern art gallery! I believe that if you remind yourself to think visually and always create you will have success as an artist.