Artists In Residence

Artists In Residence for July

Featuring: Xanthe & Xoe Villa, from Sierra Vista, AZ

Article Review by: Christy Pethel

Here is Xoe Villa creating her masterpieces of Disney & Mario characters. She uses a media of a whiteboard and colored erasable markers. Below Xoe's pictures, Xanthe Villa creates the parrot from the Nick Jr. show "Diego" and a Pokemon character.

As budding artists, they show a promising talent and keen eye for being able to create drawings by either following very limited instructions, or drawing from their own vision of how an object should be duplicated. They draw every one of their favorite Disney, Mario, cartoon, YoGabba and Pokemon characters ON everything that they can. Her parents find papers strewn all over the place with drawings. They draw when they're bored, they draw when they have a purpose, and they draw when they want to give presents to other people.

"This isn't a new thing. They have always have had a love and "eye" for drawing things," their mom explains. "When they were toddlers, not even able to speak and were nearing boredom or a grouchy episode, I would hand them a pen and any type of paper I could find, usually notecards (or even receipts or envelopes). They would sit on a step outside, or sit on the floor, and just draw random lines and shapes. Immediately they would calm down and be in their own world."

They both have the dream of decorating their room with huge characters drawn on the wall. The only thing they can't agree on is if the characters should be YoGabba or Pokemon. And much to the dismay of her parents, one of them (neither will admit it) has already started the designs for the room by drawing every YoGabba character in the way she wants it enlarged on the wall, and has secretly started sketching it in pencil above her bed.

What will they choose? YoGabba? Pokemon? Or will it turn out to be something completely different? Stay tuned for our next review.