Jackie Santivanez: ‘Raindrop’

With a splash of color, Jackie Santivanez said her piece represents her in her “most peaceful environment.”

“I really like when it rains. It makes me calm in any situation. I like the color blue and the whole portrait is just me in my happiest state, and it makes me happy to work on.”

In her process, she used mixed media such as watercolor, marker, brush pens but primarily colored pencil.

“I made a sketch of it before I decided to make a full piece and that was pretty fun. I liked the theme of it. And I was very hopeful. But once I started working on it, I realized that it would be much more work than I had expected. When it was plenty of long nights, lots of hours spent working on it and multiple times I was so tired that I didn’t even know if I wanted to continue. But it was one of those things where you would put so many hours of attention into it that it would be a loss if you didn’t finish it by now.”

She said the piece was first created during quarantine, so she was surprised and happy about it moving on to the state competition.