2 Dimensional Artist, Rain Garrett Benedetti
Rain Garrett Benedetti is an award-winning 14-year-old artist who recently graduated from da Vinci Middle School in Portland and will be attending Milwaulki Academy of the Arts this fall. Rain’s art took home the Scholastic Art Awards Silver Key last year, for the first time after garnering several honorable mentions.
The following is a short Q&A with Rain about her Raining Arts collection followed by a collection of some of her favorite pieces. You can view more of her work on Instagram at Raining_Art_
Q&A with Rain Garrett-Benedetti
What are the tools you primarily use for creating your art? I dual in traditional and digital art. I use watercolors and I do digital art.
How would you describe your style of art? Simplistic. It isn’t extremely detailed. It’s way more toward the cartoonish side than realistic. The reason I like drawing in this more simplistic style is that I can push body proportions to be more unique and true to what bodies look like. I like a lot of diversity in my drawings.
I notice that your work is diverse. It features a variety of cultures, body shapes, and genders. Is that intentional? No, that’s just the way it is. It’s just the way I see people in my mind. There are different colors, shapes, and genders and that’s the way it comes out?
What are the tools you primarily use for creating your art? I dual in traditional and digital art. I use watercolors and I do digital art.
Why did you choose watercolors and digital art? Well, originally while I was doing traditional art I was using colored pencils and paints, and then I tried out watercolors and that felt right to me and I like the way it looks. As for digital, that one I saw on the internet and then once I realized it’s how a lot of animation is done, I tried it out for myself. I like that with just one app you could create a bunch of art. And it was a different way of making art pieces.
As an artist, what are your aspirations? I want to be a writer and an artist. I want to become an animator and eventually animate and create a cartoon of my own. And perhaps also create a graphic novel as well. When I say writer, what I mean is that I want to create and write the script for a show, cartoon, or graphic novel.
Who inspires you? Rebecca Sugar. She is the creator of Steven Universe. And that show is what brought me to the realization that that is something I can do. I can create a show that speaks to people and that people like.
How did Steven Universe touch you? I just really like the world that Rebecca Sugar created. It’s a new idea. One I’ve never seen in other shows before. I like how she solves problems not only through violence.
What kind of impact do you hope your art makes on the people who view it? I’m not entirely sure yet. I mean, I just draw whatever I feel like makes sense to me…or what feels nice to draw to me. I just post it up on my Insta and at that point it’s up for interpretation.
How do you feel when you are doing art? I feel happy and relieved. I often have a lot of thoughts that go through my mind, whether its daydreaming or what I need to do tomorrow…I’m always thinking about something. When I’m drawing, I feel like there are a whole lot fewer thoughts that cram my head. I get so focused; I’m not really thinking about anything but the strokes I’m making and what I’m drawing.
Where do you get your confidence to continue pursuing art as a career? A lot of my confidence comes from my friends and family…the people I’m close to. They support me and encourage me.
How did going to an art school like da Vinci impact you? If I hadn’t gone to Divinci, I wouldn’t pursued art as a career in the first place. It really set me on a path and encouraged me to do that.
Looking to your future schooling, what are you hoping for? I want to improve my art at Milwaulkee and learn how to do new things and explore digital art. I want to learn how to animate there. They have an animation program.
What about when you graduate? I want to go to an art college…preferably in Canada. From there, I want to pursue my dreams of becoming an animator.
Raining Art Collection
Animated version. Press full screen for animation.
TV Face. Watercolor: This one I started by putting pencil to paper and created a city. I thought, wouldn’t it be cool if someone was floating above the city? It was cool, but I was trying to figure out how she would be floating. So, I decided to make her head a TV with a screen playing balloons…because that’s how she’s flying and that logic makes total sense!
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