With pen ink staining her hands, she sits hunched over and frustrated. However, with each careful stroke of her pen, the frustration begins to leave her body. Line after line numbs her frustration, and a few hours later, senior Emily Goheen sits back admiring her new masterpiece instead of the worries she had before.

At the age of three, Goheen started drawing and was well on her way to becoming an artist. “I used to fill up notebooks with pictures, and I would bring something to draw on wherever I went,” Goheen said.

However, she did not get serious about art until middle school. According to Goheen, during this time, she did a lot of “observational drawings and things in art class.” It wasn’t until about her junior year of high school that she believes she picked up a style.

“I mostly do pen and ink illustrations, so pictures that go with stories that I’ve read or seen in TV shows, and my own stories that I make up as well,” Goheen said.

Her favorite part of art is its use as an outlet to vent frustrations “when I’m anxious or upset about something.”

“The medium of pen and ink takes a lot of time and patience because one has to do everything line by line. For a lot of people that can be tedious, but I think it can be really mind-numbing and lets me focus on something other than what’s bothering me,” she said. “Whenever I finish a piece I feel as though that one is my favorite until I finish something else.”

According to Goheen, she mostly makes art for herself, but she has won some awards. In addition to honorable mentions the past two years at the JC Art Show, she recently got a creative vision award scholarship from MICA for the portfolio she submitted with her application.

“The easiest part for me is just sitting down and drawing. The hard part is getting ideas for a picture. [However,] sometimes I’ll have ideas but no motivation to start a project,” Goheen said.

Also, Goheen explained that the criticism from other people and herself is challenging.

“Most of the time the mistakes I think I made aren’t even visible, and I spend most of the time worrying that what I make isn’t perfect. That is definitely the hardest part about making art, because we are our own worst critics,” she said.

Despite the challenges, Goheen will definitely be pursing art in her future, with plans of attending an art college to study illustration and possibly theater design.

Goheen says she wants “to have a lot of different jobs and internships after I graduate that involve art. I’ve wanted to design theatre sets for a while now. I’m not sure if that’s where I’ll end up, but I also definitely want to illustrate books when I’m older and more experienced.”

Hope Kelly is the Editor in Chief of The Patriot and jcpatriot.com.