Watch CBS News

From Alaska To Baltimore To Hollywood: MICA Freshman Named Illustrator Of The Future

BALTIMORE (WJZ)—Most college students seem to need four years at school to be ready to get a job.

But, as Mike Schuh reports, there is a freshman at MICA who already is getting national attention.

With Baltimore looking more like Fairbanks, Alaska, perhaps it's appropriate in the hustle and bustle of MICA to run into Fairbanks transplant, digital artist, freshman Sarah Webb.

"It's great to have all these other artists to interact with and to see art all time," Webb said.

The art she sees in her mind and then creates looks like rich, imaginative fantasy worlds.

She's self-taught. And to become better, last year she had to leave Fairbanks for Baltimore.

"I think it was a bigger shot to go from my tiny town to Baltimore," Webb said.

Her formal training is beginning at MICA. But let's face it. Her work is already pretty advanced.

"I taught myself from looking at tutorials online," Webb said.

At 14 she talked her parents into buying her a $700 tablet, a necessary tool to get what she sees in her head out and onto the digital screen.

"And I said I'd never want anything else," Webb said.

Initially, Webb lost over a year of work because she worked too hard and was sidelined by tendonitis in her arm.

After completing some projects, she decided to enter a contest and won.

"It's really nice to have that recognition," Webb said.

It is this outside validation to be one of 12 illustrators in the world invited to the Illustrator Of The Future awards ceremony next month in Los Angeles that she hopes launches her career. And it is the news that soothed her parents' fears.

"It kinda proves to people, my parents and teachers, that this is a viable option," Webb said.

She admits her parents had some skepticism along the way.

"A little bit," she said. "No parent wants their kid to go to art school."

Art school or not, with talent like this, Webb is going places.

Webb will fly to Los Angeles in two weeks to see if she is the grand prize winner of the Illustrator of The Future contest.

Other Local News:

View CBS News In
CBS News App Open
Chrome Safari Continue
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.