Senior Lucky Lewis didn’t become an artist because of some grand creative ambitions. Capturing the world through the soft sketch of a pencil? Using a blend of paints to express their feelings? No way.

They just wanted to draw a dinosaur. 

“I really liked dinosaurs and I decided one day, I kind of wanted to draw a dinosaur,” Lewis said. “And then I drew a dinosaur and I never stopped drawing.”

Lewis’ art has continually evolved since that first dinosaur drawing. In fact, they say that every couple of years their work changes to the point of being unrecognizable to what it was before. 

“Lucky shows me [their art] all the time,” senior Phillip Poteet, a friend of Lewis, said. “It’s really good.”

Now, Lewis is taking Advanced Placement 2-D Art & Design. This year-long, college level class requires them to create a variety of artworks exploring one central idea.

“In AP art, each student develops a portfolio of artwork and submits this college level portfolio to the College Board for review,” instructor Trish Swoboda said. “Portfolios are based on a guiding question that each student generates themselves.”

Lewis’ portfolio, for example, explores mythological creatures. They’ve painted dragons. Jackalopes. Griffins. The one piece they really toiled over though, was their 28×18 inch painting of an alicanto. 

“[The alicanto] is a bird in Chilean mythology,” Lewis said. “It eats gold ore and it does its best to stay away from people who are trying to follow it so that it can lead back to an ore deposit.”

Lewis takes on a different interpretation of the myth. In their painting, the shimmering alicanto spreads its wings wide against an inky black sky, attempting to lure its greedy followers to their deaths. 

“In this painting specifically, this bird is stretching its wings, making itself very present, making itself very known, right in the middle of the night, kind of just before dawn,” Lewis said. “You can see it’s kind of having… an angry expression.”

The painting of the alicanto is richly colored, but other works of Lewis’ are simple black and white sketches. Each piece, however, contains a new mythological creature and a new artistic skill. And each piece takes time– two to three weeks, on average. 

“Usually I get started with a few thumbnail sketches,” Lewis said. “Then a more detailed sketch on either the canvas or the paper, and from there, it’s all just like chipping away at a clay block you have. It takes a long time, but it eventually comes together.”

Lewis will have to submit five of their best works, along with fifteen images showing their artistic development, to the College Board by May 9th. Then, they await a score for college credit. But no matter what the College Board says, Lewis’ teacher is proud of the work they have created. 

“Getting to see Lucky’s art, and the strides that are made every day, is impressive,” Swoboda said. “I appreciate the maturity and responsibility level Lucky Lewis demonstrates.”

And Lewis themselves is too. They did take the class with the goal of college credit in mind, but they admit that art is a passion one should pursue only for oneself.

“I really like doing art, but I would say it’s always best to do art for yourself first before anything else,” Lewis said.

For Lewis, this is exactly what art is: not a vocational pursuit, but a means of expressing themselves. Lewis isn’t planning to pursue an artistic career after high school. Instead, they’re turning their dinosaur fascination into a future in paleontology and geology. 

“Those…  I think I hold them closer to my heart than I do art,” Lewis said.