Painting, writing, digital art. These are not the interests most students of Monarch would pursue, but they are for the artistic minority like Apollo Pickersgill ‘20. For him, he has a special talent in those areas. 

Pickersgill’s journey began with playing around with his family’s old tablet. 

“I used to draw over lines and draw on Photoshop itself because our family also had Photoshop,” Pickersgill said. “The tablet was just kind of laying around, and the more and more I used it, the more I got used to it, and the more I was excited to just do more stuff. It just went from there.”

Pickersgill has an aptitude for art, but that doesn’t mean he’s perfect. Making mistakes is part of the process. He prefers using Photoshop because fixing these mistakes and editing a piece of artwork is easy. 

“If I make a mistake I can always just go back, and there’s a lot more tools to help build pieces,” he said.

Art, while not necessarily Pickersgill’s passion in life, is still something he uses on the daily to help with his many creative pursuits and to organize his thoughts around writing.

“It does help me visualize a lot of thoughts,” he said. “I am a very creative person, and I think I might just go into more of a creative writing direction in my future.  But definitely having digital art and all that stuff helps visualize, like characters or scenes in stories.”

Over time, digital art, along with other creative activities, has become an escape for Pickersgill.

“It is sort of a stress reliever, just having fun doing nothing,” Pickersgill said. “You know what, I’m going to make a huge piece today. And it’s going to be great. I’m going to spend my time on this, and I’m going to put all the details I want into this piece, and it’s going to be super fun to make it.”