By Rebecca Sun
Erica Cho has been a Collingwood student since Grade Eight. She went to an elementary school for six years, and then moved schools to Mulgrave for her year in seventh grade. She was born in Seoul, South Korea. Erica and her parents have a keen interest in travelling: her father, having lived in multiple countries decided to bring Erica to Vancouver because of his own experiences of living in Vancouver. Erica believes that her exposure to different cultures has shaped who she is as a person.
Ever since Erica was young, she had always loved to sketch with pencils. This developed into her current strong love for detailed graphite pencil drawings. She discovered the medium of prismacolors a little more than a year ago, and since then she has transferred her love for realistic black and white drawings to realistic drawings with colour. Erica also enjoys painting with acrylic and just recently have taken an interest in watercolour as well.
Erica Cho has been a Collingwood student since Grade Eight. She went to an elementary school for six years, and then moved schools to Mulgrave for her year in seventh grade. She was born in Seoul, South Korea. Erica and her parents have a keen interest in travelling: her father, having lived in multiple countries decided to bring Erica to Vancouver because of his own experiences of living in Vancouver. Erica believes that her exposure to different cultures has shaped who she is as a person.
Ever since Erica was young, she had always loved to sketch with pencils. This developed into her current strong love for detailed graphite pencil drawings. She discovered the medium of prismacolors a little more than a year ago, and since then she has transferred her love for realistic black and white drawings to realistic drawings with colour. Erica also enjoys painting with acrylic and just recently have taken an interest in watercolour as well.
Erica’s realism drawing of a mask using Prismacolor pencils.
Outside of school, Erica is also involved in Taekwondo and Volleyball. Taekwondo is the sport that she is currently most involved in. Erica has been doing Taekwondo for almost five years. She is a first dan black belt as of now and is helping to teach kids alongside the Head Instructors at her Taekwondo academy. Being with and helping kids has always been something Erica has been passionate about and she feels honoured to be able to help the kids on their own Taekwondo journey that she much enjoyed herself. Volleyball is a sport that Erica has been participating in since Grade Six. It gives her a thrill that no other team sport has. Whenever she is playing in a volleyball game, the kind of intensity of the silence right before the ball is served to signal the beginning of another play is hard to compare to anything else for Erica. Erica loves all of the subjects she is taking in school, she has always loved Math and Art since elementary school but as she got older, her interests in Science and English flourished. Another interesting fact about Erica is that she loves to read. She has been really enjoying classics and has recently finished The Great Gatsby, The Midsummer Night’s Dream, Madame Bovary and is currently reading Pride and Prejudice.
To Erica, it is doubtless that her parents have been her greatest inspiration and supporters. Erica shared that their kindness has helped her to become who she is today and she aspires to be someone who positively influences people around them as much as her parents do.
Erica’s favourite year in Art was 2020 because she explored many new visual art mediums and won the Grade 8/9 Art Award. Erica thinks that art is what has allowed her to escape the other parts of reality sometimes. When she is working on an art piece, Erica can allow herself to focus on one thing and one thing only. This brings her to a sense of calm and acute focus. Erica has participated in a few competitions before, at school, she won Collingwood’s 2020 bookmark contest and she is currently working on contests outside of school.
Erica believes that art is an expression of how she reflects as a person. She loves to create realistic artworks because she likes to keep things under her control. As a perfectionist, she believes her drawing style delivers her personality. To Erica, Art has been a long time commitment, it helps her deal with general stress by letting her get away from the world, she finds this process to be fun and unsophisticated. Erica would like to share with developing artists that they should practice creating their own ideas because there is a deeper connection between the artist and the art piece when it is original. Over recent years, Erica has found herself to be more patient when creating Art. In the future, Erica hopes to pursue STEM or English Language related careers, though she will incorporate her artistic talents and creativity into whatever she does, and will continue to practice visual arts as a hobby.
To Erica, it is doubtless that her parents have been her greatest inspiration and supporters. Erica shared that their kindness has helped her to become who she is today and she aspires to be someone who positively influences people around them as much as her parents do.
Erica’s favourite year in Art was 2020 because she explored many new visual art mediums and won the Grade 8/9 Art Award. Erica thinks that art is what has allowed her to escape the other parts of reality sometimes. When she is working on an art piece, Erica can allow herself to focus on one thing and one thing only. This brings her to a sense of calm and acute focus. Erica has participated in a few competitions before, at school, she won Collingwood’s 2020 bookmark contest and she is currently working on contests outside of school.
Erica believes that art is an expression of how she reflects as a person. She loves to create realistic artworks because she likes to keep things under her control. As a perfectionist, she believes her drawing style delivers her personality. To Erica, Art has been a long time commitment, it helps her deal with general stress by letting her get away from the world, she finds this process to be fun and unsophisticated. Erica would like to share with developing artists that they should practice creating their own ideas because there is a deeper connection between the artist and the art piece when it is original. Over recent years, Erica has found herself to be more patient when creating Art. In the future, Erica hopes to pursue STEM or English Language related careers, though she will incorporate her artistic talents and creativity into whatever she does, and will continue to practice visual arts as a hobby.