Lyn Parks, also known to her nearly 6,000 followers on Instagram as Pebbles, has made a name for herself as a digital artist while also working as a full-time student. As a sophomore theatre major at LSU, Parks still finds time in between class, homework and rehearsal to create all kinds of art from comics to character designs.
“I’ve always kind of been an artist and a creative person, but I started drawing because of an artist called GinjaNinjaOwO,” Parks said. “That’s where my long-term passion continued.”
Parks talked about starting her digital art journey. She started out by using Paint.NET, a notoriously out-of-date digital art software.
She talked about how, in the early days, she didn’t know about the line stabilizer tools and how she would use a line manipulation tool to create each line of art. As for all people hoping to improve their art, time spent practicing and getting to know other artists gave her experience and introduced new drawing platforms.
All artists have a source of inspiration — Parks gains hers from the anime, cartoons and live action shows she loves. She recently published some art inspired by “Wicked,” “The Hunger Games” and “Nice Life.” Parks recently got into the medical drama “The Pitt,” and she is a long-time fan of the show “The Umbrella Academy.” Shows like these also help Parks as a storyteller.
“It helps me stay with a fresh mind and stay inspired,” said Parks. “I mean, obviously I have days where I don’t have anything that I feel like drawing, and if I try to, it’s going to be hard on me.”
Another inspiration for Parks is other artists. Not only does she learn different techniques and designs from observing others’ art, but she also works with other artists to learn from hands-on experience.
The journey to becoming a great artist is hard work, and oftentimes is much more complicated than it may seem to the average person.
“I was always kind of against fundamentals, which is not a good perspective to go into art with,” she said. “I didn’t like art classes because it would make you branch out into doing the painting or learning the fundamentals. I always kind of pushed against that, but the fastest way that I have seen to grow, which I always grumble at, is learning fundamentals and trying new things.”
Practicing constantly is how Parks has improved so well.
“I’ve been drawing for over eight years consistently. I doodle in my off time; I draw poses when I’m bored. I draw real life sometimes to practice. I try to diversify what I’m doodling,” said Parks. “Over time, I learned that not everything has to be exactly perfect.”
Parks talked about all the things she does with her art now, including her Etsy shop. In the past year or so, she has made over 2,700 sales on Etsy selling keychains, stickers and prints of her art. She is also open to art commissions.
Recently, because she is in the LSU School of Theatre for design, she’s gotten into making props, which she finds helps her with drawing her digital art. On the topic of theater, Parks talked about how that has shaped her art and overall creativity.
“When I’m looking at a costume, I’ll sketch it to see how it would look for me in my art style,” she said.
One feature of theater that has really helped is looking at the tangible and being able to translate it to 2D much easier.
Parks also mentioned her love for storytelling and how she began to work on her storytelling. A while ago, she made a collaborative comic with an artist friend from TikTok. The friend had written a story where characters were sending notes back and forth during class, but Parks brought it a step further — she drew artwork to go with it. The comic is called “Notes.”
“It was received well,” Parks said. “I was blown away by the amount of support that both of us received. It was really incredible.”
At the end of the day, art comes from so many places, and there are so many creative things to do. Parks is one person in a long line of talented artists creating work that helps and inspires others.
