Creative Minds

Students turn their passion for art into a business to inspire others

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Sruthi Ramesh

Ayrianna Franklin (left) and Sara Bailey (right) are shown selling their art at the Holiday Bazaar on Nov. 10.

Emily Barnett, Reporter

For most people it’s hard to find and use their talents to do something successful and influential. Freshmen Sara Bailey and Ayrianna Franklin have turned their ordinary hobby and talent to the next level by selling stickers, shirts and prints featuring popular images, fan art and original art that they make.

The most successful item being stickers that feature popular images such as Stranger Things, Billie Eilish, Riverdale stickers along with Vine reference stickers that reflect off pop culture today.

“We did popular icons because we knew people would be gravitated to familiar things,” Franklin said. Prices on the items remained relatively cheap and the stickers that were sold were 2 inches, stayed at about 50-75 cents per sticker.

A lot of preparation came in making the items which were sold at the Holiday Bazaar. Both Bailey and Franklin worked on their art separately but agreed that it took around 3 weeks and more than 40 hours of drawing, coloring, and painting, to make all the stickers, prints, and t-shirts for the Holiday Bazaar.

A sticker sketch averages around 10 minutes per sticker and original pieces of artwork and the embroidery on the shirts took multiple hours of work. Sara’s stickers featuring her art were made professionally while Franklin’s sticker sketches were copied on paper and made herself by the sticker maker she has at home. All the stickers were made using Copic (expensive alcohol) markers, and outliners.

All the prints were made with water color paints. At the end of the holiday bazaar, both girls sold to around 30 individuals but did not profit very much, which didn’t matter to them because that wasn’t their main goal.

“Money is an extra thing but getting out there is pretty much my main goal because if I don’t get myself out there now, I don’t know who will be watching me later,” Bailey said in her reason behind the decision of selling art.

Franklin’s passion in art also runs deep within herself.

“I want to get myself out there because I want to inspire those younger than me,” she said. “I want to make money off of it but I’d just rather have a positive influence on people because life is hard and sometimes art can take away from that. It’s like the calm in a storm. It inspires you to do something even if it’s not art. It might motivate you to do something, that’s sort of our goal.”

Both artists feel passionate about the work that they do and hope to sell their art again at school but items can also be purchased if you email them directly or message them on their art accounts on Instagram.