Spring 2024

The Art of Adela

By Eli Landau

“Art is my life's main focus” Adela Tabay.

I decided to conduct an interview with Adela, a 17 year old senior whose academy is DMA.

First things first, DMA stands for Digital Media Arts which covers a wide array of art forms including digital drawing, photography, Photoshop, etc.  Adela’s art mostly focuses on drawing digitally on Procreate (an art app) and joined DMA for the Adobe Photoshop certification.  A lot of people in DMA use Procreate including Adela, but Adela also loves learning how to use Lightroom (a photo editing app).

They’re favorite art pieces are a movie called Nimona (she says it resonates with her and is planning for the future) and her two favorite artists: Natu Xantino and Emily Xu.  Emily Xu creates beautiful pieces “It’s just inspiring” she says.

Her favorite piece that she created took inspiration from one of her favorite artists, Natu Xantino.  “It is a piece recognizing my culture and having friends help me make it meaningful.”  Adela said that this piece was inspired by the Philippine pre colonial era (her culture).  It is also a mixed media piece where she used watercolor, photoshop, procreate and fashion design.  Look at the piece below! ⬇️

I spend a lot of time in DMA with my friends and I noticed that a lot of people use Adela as their models and focus point of their photography and Photoshop work, so I decided to ask her about how she feels about that.  “It kinda boosts my ego” Adela said, “I like being a part of other people’s creative experience/process”

Since Adela is a senior, I decided to ask her about her thoughts for the future i.e. college.  Adela plans on going to college, and not only that, but she has been accepted to Cornish College of Art located in Seattle Washington.  Adela says they have been planning for college since elementary school.

“Art is the only thing I can think about; anything from film to traditional to digital, any art form really" 🐾