Lana Vu finds lots of joy in drawing, it makes her feel relaxed and allows her to have fun in her free time.

“I feel so happy and just so at ease with life. It takes a lot of time and kills time. It’s very nice as a hobby to do,” said Vu.

Vu has been drawing for most of her life, both traditionally and digitally. When drawing digitally, she usually uses a free art program.

“I’ve been drawing traditionally for most of my 15 years of life,” said Vu. “But digitally, four years. I primarily use Fire Alpaca. It’s a free drawing program.”

Vu is precise in her work. She spends a lot of time on her drawings, making sure they are fully completed.

“It takes me a really long time to finish each drawing piece,” she said. “It could take me like many hours in one sitting two days in real time, but in general, it could take like 30 hours for fully shaded, colored and illustrated pieces.”

During the process, Vu likes to do certain things more than others. She likes to spend time on coloring, as it makes her feel happy.

“My favorite part of drawing has to be probably coloring. It is just so therapeutic to choose different colors that all fit together and color within the lines and be free to do whatever I want.”

Vu draws in her free time, but since she is primarily focused on work outside of her hobby, she finds it difficult to find time to do so.

“It’s extremely difficult because I can’t get many draws in a single year, like, five full drawings max,” said Vu. “And I don’t doodle all that much. So it’s a bit of an issue.”

Finishing a drawing is challenging, Vu wishes that she had more time to draw and to indulge in her hobby, away from her work and clubs.

“There’s too much time I spend on clubs and homework, like double the amount I should be spending but I would love to be able to draw more.” Said Vu.