https://www.scnews.com/theme_pages/youth_scene/article_e9db15bc-d246-11e4-9ba8-57f31a7140d3.html
Amara Sky Mulhall never liked coloring books as a child, and it’s served her well.
Mulhall, now an 18-year-old Stanwood High School student about to complete her senior year, is the recipient of the prestigious 2015 National Scholastic silver medal for an art project she did in her teacher Gail Merrick’s AP art class.
This isn’t the first time Mulhall has received recognition for her work.
In the past two years, she has earned five gold keys and one silver key from regional Scholastic art awards.
Mulhall has been a student in Merrick’s graphic arts program since her freshman year. “You get close to these kids,” said Merrick, “because you have them longer than other students. You develop a different relationship when you have students for all four years of high school.”
Mulhall agrees.
“She’s like a mom away from mom,” she said.
Mulhall isn’t the only artist in her household.
“I come from a family of artists who have nurtured my talent since I was old enough to hold a pencil,” she said.
Her father used to paint with oils, and her mother quit waitressing to pursue her art full-time.
It’s that sort of support that has fueled Mulhall’s creativity, giving her the freedom to produce works of art in different forms, whether in pencil, with a brush or digital media.
When she won this year’s silver medal, it was for a something entirely different. She produced a mixed-media collage entitled “La Muerta” (“death,” in Spanish).
The project, an astonishing display of color and imagination, made up of clippings of National Geographic magazine pages on a cardboard backdrop, framed in by a black frame.
The collage was inspired by her grandmother’s visit to Mexico for Dia de los Muertos (“Day of the Dead”), a lively Mexican holiday that honors the dead.
When her grandmother returned, she brought Amara a sugar skull – a colorful representation of a human skull.
Mulhall’s interpretation of the vibrant designs in sugar skulls was the basis for “La Muerta.”
She did a similar digital media piece in her freshman year, she said.
She is an active member and two-term vice president of the Stanwood chapter of the National Art Honor Society.
Currently, she is in the midst of completing her second AP studio art portfolio exam, wherein she is supposed to carry a theme through 24 pieces of artwork.
Mulhall’s interest in art, however, goes far beyond the classroom. She is already getting paid for her work, marketing online to people looking for quality artwork in the form of digital and tattoo design.
Recently, she was accepted to the two colleges she was most excited about. She will be attending the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA).
“There aren’t very many students there,” Mulhall said. “Like 1,200. It’s really hard to get into.”
She said her dream job is to delve into the world of character design, using her skills as an artist to tell stories at Pixar or Cartoon Network.
When asked about her process as an artist, Mulhall laughed.
“I just kind of start sketching,” she said, “and my sketches are incomprehensible to anyone else.”
She likes to work on a big canvas – lots of room to work – and the result is usually pretty spectacular.
One piece, “Parliament of Owls,” portrays a semi-circle of barn owls upon dark pillars in dry pastel.
Another, in thick strands of black ink, shows a zebra thrashing across a white canvas.
Mulhall is shy and quiet, but when she speaks, the words having meaning.
“It’s really, really important to me,” she said, “that what I create becomes recognizable as my own style.”
