Art at Heart: An Interview with Helena Panting
Hi, hello, and howdy doody! Welcome to Art at Heart, where we interview our school’s talented artists! Today we are featuring… the incredible Helena Panting! Helena is a grade 11 student at Holy Heart. In her free time, Helena helps to run the Gender-Sexuality Alliance club, learns about space and loves to play with her dog, Mabel! Well, when she isn’t drawing that is! Helena is an extremely talented artist. She often posts her work on Instagram, @spacecadet.lou.
To get to know Helena’s style a little better, I asked her what her medium is. While Helena loves to try new things when it comes to art and isn’t locked into a particular medium, coloured pencils are her typical go to. She says “they’re just easy, forgiving, portable, and inexpensive.”
Helena has many artists that inspire her, starting with the showrunner for the television series, She-Ra. “ I look up to Nate Stevenson because I’ve basically grown up on his stuff, me and my friends grew up on the Lumberjanes and I recently read his memoir (The Fire Never Goes Out) . It’s absolutely beautiful. So I take great inspiration from everything he does. I love his art and comics.” Helena also is extremely inspired by an artist that posts Instagram, @ikimaru.jpg. “Another artist I love is Ikimaru on Instagram, they mainly do digital art, but I love the way they color and texture clothing.” The last person Helena listed was Andy Suraino. “He’s done work on Samurai Jack, StarWars: The clone wars, Rise of the TMNT, The Powerpuff girls. Dude has an impressive rap sheet.”
I asked Helena why she creates art. “I create for a multitude of reasons. some mundane as just needing something to do but also as all encompassing as feeling it to my purpose. No matter what I’m doing I feel compelled to go and make stuff. Sometimes it’s sort of an escape, I spend a lot of time with a sketchbook open in my lap fantasizing about the next cool thing my comic character is going to do or listening to music and imagining cool fights. It’s just something I enjoy doing and hope to make it a career. Overall, I make art because it makes me happy, when I’m off in my own little world where I am free to doodle to my heart’s content. Especially that feeling when I’m the only one awake, my sketchbook only illuminated by a warm desk lamp, and I’ve got my headphones on listening to music/my show. Best feeling in the world.”
Helena is an incredibly talented artist with a great potential. Hopefully you will see some of her work in galleries soon!
