By Camelia Heins
After hours of brainstorming and planning, a single stroke hits the canvas. First, the shadows and outlines. Then, the layers of color and accumulations of details. Before you know it, an art piece has exploded before your eyes.
That’s what it’s like for Newlyn Nguyen and her passion for art. Whether it’s painting, pen ink, charcoal or pastels, Newlyn’s talent on canvas, or on paper, clearly shines through.
Nguyen has been passionate about art since she was a kid, but her skill truly blossomed when she became more involved in her artistry throughout high school. Through the FVHS Art 2 class, Nguyen submitted her pieces to some local art contests and won. Her work has been displayed at the Huntington Beach Art Center for Creative Visions, the South Coast Plaza Art Display, the Laguna Beach Arts Festival and the Laguna Beach Sawdust Festival.
“I was able to visit all of them except for the Sawdust Festival, but it was a very surreal feeling to see my work displayed for everyone to see,” she said.
Along with having her work displayed, she also painted a mural one year for Mile Square’s annual Summerfest.
“It was really fun to be able to work on such a big and public piece,” she said. “It took many nights and lots of paint to finish it.”
Besides participating in art in the local community, she enrolled in Ryman Arts School based in Los Angeles during her sophomore year. After a thorough application process, Nguyen was accepted and went through three semester-long courses on drawing and painting. Since Nguyen deferred each semester to span the courses out into three years, she is currently finishing her last semester on Advanced Painting this spring.
Although the program has been difficult to handle while taking high school classes, Nguyen was able to manage it and fully dedicate the necessary time for each art piece.
“In the beginning, it was a little hard,” she said. “I’d find myself doing my homework on Friday night because my classes are on Saturdays but, it’s kinda hard to procrastinate with art because you’re expected to finish a whole piece and you can’t just look up the answers for that.”
Through this program, all her art supplies are fully paid by Ryman Arts, allowing Nguyen to really focus on her skills. Along with this, she is able to work one-on-one with college-level art professors who expose her to opportunities outside of class in the art field.
“[The professors] push you really hard and you really struggle but, then in the end, you’re like, ‘Wow, I did so well or I know so much more now,’” Nguyen said.
Nguyen recently started up an Etsy shop, alongside managing an Instagram account and Youtube channel to display her progress for her art pieces.
“I post most of my practice works or my old art pieces up [on my Etsy shop],” Nguyen said. “I only have one creative piece but most of them are still lifes.”
She has had some success with her shop and makes a couple of sales a month, with buyers ranging from all across the country.
Although she’s been dedicated and passionate about her art, it hasn’t always been easy for her.
“It’s hard for me to find my own time to stay disciplined and put time out for my art but I just think it’s something that I need to do for myself just to keep in touch with my creative side,” she said.
Typically, Nguyen likes incorporating nature and her culture into her art style, as well as anything that sparks her inspiration around her, and her favorite art piece is of a robot named Buford that she created for her Ryman arts class.
“[For my assignment], I chose to do an ocean cleaning robot to help with the environment and my inspiration was Eve [from] Wall-e and the fish from Chicken Little,” Nguyen said. “It was my favorite because I got to take my own creative direction with it and do whatever I want while incorporating my art skills instead of drawing from observation/life all the time.”
Right now, and into the future, Nguyen plans on developing her art style more and continuing on improving her skills.
“I feel like when you spend so much time trying to perfect your skill that it’s hard to find your style sometimes because you just do everything cookie-cut, by-the-book but once you start incorporating your style, you can kind of blur the lines a bit and then I try to do things that are a little more abstract,” she said.
Although Nguyen doesn’t plan on pursuing a career in the art field right now, she hopes to continue selling her pieces through her shop, opening up commissions, painting more local murals and even pursuing teaching art in the future.
For aspiring artists, she wants them to know that art takes time, dedication and tons of practice.
“It took me [three to five] years to finally start getting a little good at it but you just really have to try. You have to put a lot of time into it—if you really love it,” Nguyen said.
This article was originally published in the 2021 RED Magazine. Stop by room 306 to pick up a copy.
