It was just a normal day in art class, until a creature was born.
Ms. Lawson had asked each of her students to build a creature friend. My friend Francisco Ortiz is someone who loves to draw. He’ll show me drawings from his tablet, and they are very original. I have never seen
art like his. When it came to creating a creature, Francisco was stoked about this assignment; he has a very imaginative mind.
In class there were pictures of different animals and different monsters by Takashi Murakami for inspiration. Francisco’s process started with a sketch of his creature, where he fused an elephant and a tiger together. After he had his sketch, it was ready to build. He started off with a lot of newspapers. He crumpled them up and taped them together to get the shape, which looked like an eggplant. Then he covered the newspaper base in paper mache.
Next, he used wire sticks to help stabilize the monster’s arms and legs. He cut tiny triangles to make razor sharp teeth out of tin foil, everything a monster should have. After it dried for a few weeks, the creature was ready to paint. Francisco’s idea for the creature had changed. His picture on the board was just green, but instead he mixed green and black to make it look more menacing and monochromatic.
When Francisco saw the monster he was creating it made him feel happy.
“It was pretty good and well-designed. I was surprised at how it came together. I had other designs for it, but I just knew that this character came from radiation.”
