‘Just keep practicing’

Aussie Lura hated hearing this motto as a young artist (and still “kind of hates it”), but Lura has a new appreciation for it. For Lura, it’s what motivated them to keep going even when they were frustrated with their art.

 “I know that’s been used a million times,” Lura said. “And I absolutely despised it when I was in the very beginning. I hated everything I made and I did not want to keep going but I did keep going and my art is a lot better for it. When you don’t like how your art appears, you have to keep in mind that every single time you do it you get better.”

Art is more than just a hobby for Lura. They plan to major in Interactive Media at UT Arlington and are in the process of launching an Etsy shop to sell stickers of their art.

“I do want my career to be centered around art,” Lura said. “So I plan to become either a visual artist or a concept artist for a video game or an animator or something in that realm. But on the side, I also want to keep making my own art as a hobby and start up an Etsy business by myself and also put my own art out into the world on the side.”

Lura can be found on Instagram at @AussieTaylorArt, which they use to promote their art, but also to connect with other artists and find inspiration for new pieces.

“I follow 700 other artists for the most part,” Lura said. “And anytime I want inspiration or I’m feeling unmotivated, I’ll go on there and I’ll just scroll through my feed and I’ll see a bunch of other really talented artists.”

Most of Lura’s work is digital art, but their creative process starts from pencil and paper.

When they develop an idea, they make a sketch in their sketchbook and take a picture of the sketch to send to their iPad. This allows them to trace the art from their sketch using Procreate, an illustration app for iPads. 

“I would describe my style of art as very colorful,” Lura said. “It’s kind of hard to put it into words but I have really strong line art. A lot of my art relies online art because there are some artists who don’t have liner at all or are really realistic or are really cartoony. I think I fall somewhere in between in the middle. And it’s just very colorful and has a lot of creative characters.”

Lura’s creative passions don’t stop at art — they have acted and directed for the Starlight Theatre Company since their freshman year.

“I feel like art and theater are kind of intertwined in the creative light, but I feel like they’re very different mediums and I feel like they have sparked my creativity for one another, but I feel like they don’t intermingle a lot,” Lura said.

There’s a debate in the art community about artists who call themselves “self-taught”. Lura sees it as no one is truly self-taught, rather artists develop their art based on what they’ve already seen.

“One thing that I believe is everybody says self-taught in their bio, but I really think that everybody develops an art style that comes from bits and pieces of the art that you consume,” Lura said. “And you kind of develop it based on that. So none of us are really self-taught. It’s just because of what we consume, manifesting and our minds are like what we create.”

Lura’s work doesn’t just inspire them, it inspires others. Wechsler, who also makes art, says they improved as an artist because of Lura’s dedication to art. 

“I am 100% confident that I would not have grown as much as an artist as I have without them,” Wechsler said. “Seeing them grow and just do art all the time always encourages me to keep going with art.”

Like most artists, Lura says that staying motivated with art isn’t always easy, but the satisfaction of completing a piece of art makes it worth it.

“It’s about perseverance, resilience and still working when you have self doubt and knowing that it’s just going to keep getting better,” Lura said.