Apollo High School

Art influences people of all kinds in many various ways. Some dream about creations and such. Others live their lives through art and create different personalities through art. Heather Dersheimer, a 16-year old Sophomore, is one of those people. Since she was about four years old, Heather has been creating art,and it has been a major part of her life ever since.

Since August 2003, Heather has had her artwork on three different websites, elfwood.lysator.liu.se/, www.deviantart.com, and celestialartistry.net. The first website she submitted artwork to was Elfwood. She found Elfwood three years ago while she was surfing the Net to find a picture of a dragon. She came across Elfwood, fell in love with the whole concept of real people submitting and commenting on artwork, and joined.

On Elfwood, one has to have a free membership in order to have their artwork online. When you’ve created your membership, your artwork is divided up into two different galleries: Fan art and Sci-Fi/Fantasy. Heather, also ‘Sutherland’s Heat’ in her galleries, has art in both galleries, ranging from Harry Potter and Invader Zim to dragons and anthro. Anthro is a style of art where animals have human characteristics. All of the artwork that Heather creates has a name, like “Red Dragon” and “Sutherland Dragon” to “Dib meets the Matrix” and “Do A Little Dance".

After she had been involved in Elfwood for a while, a friend recommended she join DeviantArt, and from Deviant Art, she was invited to join CelestialArtistry. In her Deviant Art website, she has roughly 60 pieces of artwork uploaded, and she is constantly updating her galleries on all three of the websites.

Though all of her artwork has its own name, Heather does not have a favorite among them. “My artwork is me, and I live on it,” she confided. “My artwork is inspired sometimes through dreams, music, or the occasional random thought that I have to draw the idea out.”

For all the aspiring artists at Apollo, starting out with Elfwood, DeviantArt, or CelestialArtistry, all free memberships, is a good idea if you’re up-and-coming. When creating your art, though, make sure it is your own. Create your own ideas and your own original artwork. If you are inspired by another’s artwork, give credit where credit is due, and you’ll have more support from your fans and increased respect from fellow artists and always be proud of your work.

If you want to visit any of the Sutherland's Heat sites, the websites are dragonessheat1521.deviantart.com,
www.elfwood.lysator.liu.se, and www.celestialartistry. hyperboards.com/index.cgi?
action=profile_view&username
=ILoVeThEvInEs1621.