Wearing a fedora, his right hand covered in half-dry colorful paint, Senior Josh Loyd takes a break from his own work to advise a fellow AP studio art student on her drawing, suggesting more detail here lighter lines there. He quickly creates a sketch to illustrate an idea as if he were writing his name.
Loyd constantly works on a piece, sometimes multiple pieces at once. One of his classmates commented Loyd doesn’t just produce quality art. He does so at a fast pace.
“It’s like he just cranks them out,” senior Emily Roberts said.
Loyd said he has been drawing since middle school, but has just recently decided to take his talents to the next level.
“A few years ago Mrs. Hart asked if anyone was planning to go into the art field,” he said. “No one raised their hand but me.”
Despite the lack of enthusiasm many have concerning art careers, Loyd said it is really the only field that makes sense for him.
“I didn’t want to go into math, history or science,” he said. “I like video games, I might go into designing, but a smaller idea I have is illustration for graphic novels.”
Loyd said his interest in graphic novels is not just art based; he also writes.
“It is art mostly, but I enjoy creating stories. I enjoy creating my own little world to dive into,” Loyd said.
He said his inspiration for art and story ideas stem from his interest in the human body and his love for video games. He said the games Kingdom Hearts, Dead Space and Metal Gear Solid especially inspire him.
“Most of my stories do not have a definitive genre. I see a lot of morbidness. I use and adapt from the human body, a bit of creepiness,” he said. “It [animation] is not just a kind of kiddy thing most adults make it out to be.”
AP art teacher Karen McManus said Loyd’s ability is not based on talent alone.
“He works hard and is self-disciplined, plus he has tons of ability,” McManus said. “It didn’t happen all the sudden though. Last summer, he drew and drew and drew. He came back and was dynamite. There’s a big difference between Josh last year and Josh now.”
Loyd’s creative mind and dedication to art paid off at AYAA, March 4. He took home two awards and a half tuition scholarship to Memphis College of Art where he said he plans to attend this fall.
Loyd won first place in mixed media expressive and second place in sketchbook.
“I didn’t have a specific title, but I had the specific idea of buildings being morphed into a human body,” he said
He said he used tempera, acrylic, watercolor, graphite, ink and about any other media he could find around the art room to create his piece, and he didn’t stop until it felt complete.
“It wasn’t as colorful in my head, but I wasn’t feeling the emotion that I normally do with my art so I started to add color and feel the fierceness of it,” Loyd said. “I kept adding color until I felt the fierceness reach a climax, and then I stopped.”
If he keeps up the hard work, McManus said she has no doubt Loyd will excel in the field of art he wants to enter.
“His style is very original, and he is an explosion of ideas; sometimes he can’t even get them all down. There is always a definite story behind his work,” she said. “He makes connections and uses outside resources. He wants to go into illustration and that’s exactly what he needs.”
