Why do I want to become an art teacher?

For as long as I can remember I wanted to be a teacher. Whenever I was asked the " what do you want to be when you grow up?" question my answer has always been " a teacher". When I was younger I didn't really know what grade or subject I wanted to teach, but, I knew I wanted to teach.

My motivation to teach stemmed from the teachers I had in the past. Most of my past teachers were kind and I felt like they not only cared about my education but they also cared about me as a student. I feel my teachers shaped and molded who i am because they guided me through some of the most crucial times in my development. I looked up to my teachers and I, in turn, would like to be that person for my future students to look up to.

My art teachers and I always had a special connection, as a shy kid, art was my way to express myself and connect with people. My art teachers in elementary school taught me the basics and helped me learn the necessary skills to be an artist and began to teach me the different ways to express myself. In middle school, my art teacher taught me different styles and techniques to add to my repertoire of artistic skills. I look back on those teachers and I appreciate them for what they have taught me, this is the reason I decided i would like to be an art teacher. I would like to teach students how to express themselves through art and give them the skills they need.

When it comes to my high school art days, that is when I learned to hone my skills to create pieces I can be proud of. My high school art teacher became my best friend, by this time I had already developed a sort of style for myself so now I had to learn how to refine myself. She taught me how to take my style and improve on it.

This is a digital drawing I did in November of 2017 I knew I preferred cartooning instead of realism, but, I still hadn't found a style that suited me. Throughout the school year, I learned how to take what I knew and what I learned to refine my style.

I began modifying my past style and found something I was more comfortable to draw with and produced these pieces. The style was more me and veered away from the Disney-like style. I was happy with this as well, but, knew there was still room for improvement. Sometime the anatomy of my people would be off, but, my art teacher never failed to help guide me in the right direction and she always recommended I look at reference photos (which helped a lot!). Even though these were good I still had room to grow especially with my anatomy. My teacher signed me up for a figure drawing class to help me with anatomy since that is where I commonly found hiccups in my pieces.

These are two pieces I finished after my AP Studio Art course I finally found a style I was comfortable with and a style I liked all thanks to my teacher, she helped me do what I love to do. I credit a lot of my recent art to her because she helped me take that final step to be myself as an artist and get to where a am today.

I want to be that art teacher for the next generation of children, like paying it forward, I want to now be able to have kids look up to me and I want to help them develop their art style and skills. If I could I would prefer to be a high school art teacher because I want to take students who are already serious about their art to the next step. I want to prepare them for a career in arts the same way my teacher did for me.