With the intent of winning the School Board Art Show and the Eastern Florida State College art show, senior Liliana LeBeau focused on creating a digital painting featuring LeBeau’s hand squishing the cheeks of her boyfriend’s face as well as a pencil and charcoal drawing of a light bulb. In the end, her efforts earned her first place in digital art at the School Board Art Show and best of show in the EFSC art show.

“In the digital painting, I put in a huge amount of work,” LeBeau said. “I worked on it multiple hours at a time over the course of a week. For the light bulb piece, I only put in three hours at most. It was a rather simplistic drawing, and I’m shocked it won.”

Art teacher Matthew Henderson, on the other hand, was confident that LeBeau’s efforts would earn her the winning title.

“She’s a really talented art student,” Henderson said. “The piece that she entered into the School Board Art Show showed how sophisticated her digital work can be, and I was hoping that she would win with that piece. She is very good at technical drawing, as shown by the EFSC piece, which really showed diligence. Her artwork displays her dedication to drawing.”

The sole focus of LeBeau’s work, however, isn’t simply winning competitions; she has a passion for creating art.

“I most definitely enjoy working on my art,” LeBeau said. “It gets tedious sometimes and my flaws always stick out, but overall I love being able to create.”

According to LeBeau, her love of the arts transpired from a young age and has grown ever since.

“I have loved art since the beginning,” LeBeau said. “I would flip through kids’ menus, and I would only be happy if it was blank; I’ve never liked coloring in the lines. I made a definite decision when I was in fourth grade that I wanted to do something related to art and I’ve been working towards it ever since. ”

While the future remains unclear, one thing is for certain: LeBeau’s dreams are centered around art.

“I’m really not sure of what exactly I want to do in the future,” LeBeau said. “I have looked into a lot of different things such as medical illustration and art therapy, but my absolute dream is to just be able to sell my work. I would need to become well-established first, financially speaking, but no matter what, art will definitely be the path I follow.”

By Elizabeth Marrin