Whether its oil, pastel, watercolor, or abstract painting, this year’s visual arts Sterling Scholar has it covered. Brynley Anderson has a special talent for any type of painting. Throughout her painting career she has won multiple awards and honorable mentions. All of her life she has loved art and improved her skills. Although, painting is not the only thing that she loves to do outside of school, she also loves to rock climb with her friends, and she is on the Highland High Track and Field team.

Anderson started to draw and create art at a very young age, and as she got older her passion and skill just continued to grow at an extreme rate.

“I started officially attempting to draw good things around age 9, but before that it was just a bunch of scribbles” Anderson said.

Her father, Dave, described her artful beginnings as starting even earlier than that, and she has been drawing more than scribbles from a young age. This just shows how long she has been in love with creativity in her life.

“Since she was old enough to hold a pencil, she has been drawing and composing wonderful works of art, both real life and abstract” Dave said.

Her parents have always supported her artistic ambitions from day one. They wanted each of their kids to have a fun hobby they enjoyed that they could pursue, work on, and enjoy their whole life. Anderson believes that that is one of the main reasons why she was able to pursue and grow to love her artistic skills.

“As a young girl, Brynley loved to color, and color, and color!  So, as she grew up, we encouraged her to draw and paint,” Dave stated.

To help her continue to improve her artwork, her parents sent her to do classes at the Peterson Art Center, which is an art studio that teaches high school students or older, but because Brynley was so talented she was able to attend these classes, even though she was the youngest in the room.

When Anderson came to Highland, she explained that her talent continued to grow and she can also attribute that to Tera Hunter, Highland’s art teacher.

“She has always been really helpful on how to learn and improve the basic details and skills of art, so my art is much better,” Anderson explained.

Art talent and creativity seems to just run in the blood of the Anderson family. Brynley’s great grandpa was also a very accomplished artist who would oil paint on very large canvases. Anderson explained that he was one of her inspirations for her talent. Secondly, her father has done photography for a big part of his life. Brynley’s father was a photographer for the Highland Rambler for two years, so during Anderson’s early years of artwork he was able to help her with many elements of artwork. As she worked with her father she continued to excel.

“But Brynley has excelled far past my talent with her keen eye for detail and mood in her artwork.” Dave said.

Anderson has won a numerous amount of awards for her works. In 2015 she was able to win first place in not only one competition, but two! She was able to win first place in the state fair and the Salt Lake Bird Festival. Then in 2017 she got 6th place at the state fair and then an honorable mention at the District. Then the most amazing thing her art has accomplished, was that one of her pieces of art was put in the Springville Museum of Art!

In her AP art class, she had to pick a theme that she would work on throughout the whole year. She chose nature, but more specifically birds. Also, many of the pieces that she has entered that won awards were paintings of birds.

Her favorite piece of art is a 16’ x 20’ painting of a raven. This is the piece that she entered into the Springville Museum of Art. She is most proud of this artwork because not only was it one of the largest paintings she had ever done, but it took the longest. This piece took over 50 hours of work!

“I think my favorite part is completing a sketchbook, because it’s really rewarding to see how you’ve improved from the beginning of the sketchbook to the end and it’s just a fun collection of your thoughts and sketches,” Anderson said.

As Anderson has gotten older and more skilled, she loves to look back at her oldest sketchbooks, and earlier works. Her younger self seemed to draw all sorts of different things. Anderson explained that she would draw basically anything interesting she saw in the world. She also expressed that when she looks back at her sketches she notices how far she has come over the years.

Anderson is a very talented and unique individual. She is an amazing artist and has many other skills as well. Anderson loves to be around her family and hang with her brothers anytime! She also loves to spend time with her friends, rock climbing. She has worked extremely hard to master her talent and to improve it every day, that is why she has become Highland High’s visual arts Sterling Scholar.