While there are an undetermined number of undiscovered artists at Wenatchee High School who draw, paint, and sketch beautifully, there are few who can say that they have hand sewn and stuffed a stuffed animal in the shape of a slice of cake.

Sophomore Israel Sixto is one of those few.

“In early January, I made a giant cake, like a cake slice, a stuffed cake,” Sixto said. “It was triangular and had a strawberry on top. It looked pretty cool. I sent that off to a friend, it was going to be a Christmas gift but I ended up working on it late. I shipped it off to a friend who lives in Canada and she really liked it.”

The cake was a unique project for Sixto, but stuffed animals were not. Last year, Sixto made and sold approximately 20-30 stuffed animals for $5 or $10 each.

“I made a lot of aquatic [stuffed animals] like whales, octopuses, and stuff like that,” Sixto said. “I would go to Jo-Ann’s and get that really fluffy and soft fabric and I’d stuff them with this weird silk blended woolen [material]. I would do it all by hand, too.”

Sixto began his stuffed animals by drawing a basic design. Then he would figure out dimensions and sizes of fabric needed, cut out those pieces from the fabric and sew them together. If the result was successful, he would simply replicate his results. Coming up with a design and making the first stuffed animal took three hours, and copying a design would take one hour.

He saved the money he made and bought a drawing tablet for digital art, which he started doing last year.

“I do digital painting, digital sketches, digital comics sometimes, and I also do some traditional [art],” Sixto said. “The main traditional products I use are watercolors and colored pencils and pencils. I don’t really like using acrylics because I think it’s harder to use for me cause the paint’s thicker, I can’t really blend it as well as I could with watercolor. With watercolor you can go over it as many times [as you want] and it would still look good.”

Sixto spends most of his free time painting; he paints three to four times a week, one to two hours at a time. His paintings are completed in about eight hours. Most recently, Sixto painted portraits of Ariana Grande and Katy Perry.

“Some other [work] I did were some paintings for some friends, but I didn’t charge them for them,” Sixto said. I mostly do people and marine animals. I’ve sold a couple paintings, last year I managed to sell one of them for 20 dollars and it wasn’t really that big… so that was really good.”

Just as there is a process for the creation of handmade stuffed animals, Sixto has a process for his painting. He sketches out what he wants to paint, transfers it to a larger piece of paper, and scans it before he paints over it.

“Usually when I’m online I’m just looking through things or watching YouTube videos and listening to music and it’s just like I just think ‘hey, I wanna draw this right now’ and I stop doing whatever I’m doing,” Sixto said.

Inspiration for art comes to Sixto in the form of his family. He has seven brothers who all are interested in various forms of art, and his mother makes dresses, sews, and does some drawing.

“I have a brother named Samuel who used to come here to the high school and used to do comics for The Apple Leaf and he did these dinosaur comics, I don’t know if anyone still remembers them but some of them were really funny,” Sixto said. “At home, he has a wall with all his art and I think that’s always inspiring me.”

Sixto is involved with FBLA, Earth Club, and DECA. Currently, he is competing in the State FBLA competition, he entered a logo that he designed and is waiting for results. If he places in the top 15, he will give a presentation of his logo in Seattle to the judges that will be used to determine a winner. This is his first year going to the State FBLA competition, but next year he plans on competing in the design and promotion or digital video sections.

Sixto is planning for a future career in art, but he is also considering a job in the science field.

“I was thinking of either going into graphic design or design promotion,” Sixto said. “I could see myself doing something more business related and business and art related in the future than I could see myself doing something more on my own and independent. I think it’d be better for me to go into things like graphic design because it’d be a more stable career than just drawing on my own and trying to sell it to people.”