Stories of Friends Made
Rosa/Sai Salangsang
Artist statement: "I love listening to stories. Ever since I was a little kid, whether it be a book read by my mother at bedtime or a funny cartoon, I would always stop and listen. But when an episode of a cartoon ends, I find myself wondering what could happen next to the characters, especially if it ended on a cliffhanger. Soon, I was making up my own episodes for the cartoons I watched. Before I knew it, I was creating my own characters. It wasn’t long before I discovered that not only do I like listening to stories, but I also love to create my own stories. I use these stories to express my endless imagination, as well as emotions that I have trouble finding words to describe. But, even though I love creating stories, I’m not good at telling them. The act of talking takes a lot of my energy. Instead of talking, I make art to tell stories. With art, specifically digital media art, I can tell my stories with numerous methods to express my imagination and complicated feelings. The reason why I create art and why I make up stories is to communicate and interact with other people. With my art and stories, I invite people to be storytellers too. Sometimes, people’s interpretations of my artworks may differ from my own. Because of this, I may hear brand-new stories, and as I mentioned at the beginning, I love listening to stories."
Biography
Rosa Salangsang is a digital art student who mainly uses Clip Studio Paint and After Effects
to create their artworks. Occasionally, they use Blender, Premiere Pro, and Audacity. They
often spend their free time drawing their characters on Clip Studio Paint while listening to
music on Spotify. They also make glitch art from their photographs and illustrations with
Audacity by experimenting with different effects that would normally be used for audio
files. Rosa’s main goal after graduation is to become a character designer or a video game
developer.
Before college, Rosa taught themself how to draw by watching other artists. During school,
they would watch the “art kids” in their classes draw in their notebooks. At home, they
would watch speed paints on YouTube and draw alongside them. The first few times they’ve
watched other artists, they simply copied their movements. But as Rosa kept drawing
alongside them, they developed their own style. Soon after that, they started to create and
draw characters and stories of their very own. In 2019, they studied studio practice arts at
Oregon State University. A year later, Rosa found more opportunities and room for their
storytelling craft in digital art. In their search for opportunities for digital art,
they’ve found San Jose State University. Today, Rosa is in their senior year at San Jose
State University, studying digital media arts.
