About Me...
My Art Journey ...
I started learning art and painting when I was 5 years old. Over the years I have learnt and worked with different media from oil pastels, water colors to acrylic and learned different techniques from coffee painting, one stroke, palette knife, charcoal, sketching, gold and silver leaf gilding etc.
In 2020, with the Covid-19 pandemic, our staying in the house and maintaining social distancing was crucial since my brother, Raj, has Down Syndrome and Autism and was high risk. I watched him transition from getting excited about all of us staying home to then struggle with social distancing. It was hard to watch him and that is when I decided to engage him by teaching Raj how to paint. The inception of “Art for a Cause” came during the pandemic (March, 2020) when I saw my brother, who has diagnosis for Down Syndrome and Autism, struggle with social distancing.
While working with Raj, I also created my own website (summer of 2020), Shreya’s Atelier. Through my website, I took Art classes and Workshops for kids and adults.
In 2021-22, I had an amazing opportunity to volunteer to teach Art to a group of homeschooled kids in a co-opt program. The kids were of all different abilities from age group 7 thru 10 years (Neurotypicals, kids with Autism, Down Syndrome, Dyslexia, ADHD etc.). It has been a humbling experience to teach and learn with them. This teaching opportunity helped me learn how to be patient while explaining new concepts to kids, engage students, manage the classroom, and be a leader while creating curriculum and lesson plans. It taught me to be a teacher and a student at the same time! Through this process I realized that Art has an amazing power to bring people together irrespective of their age, race, color, need, ability.
My most favorite thing is to paint with my brother, we have a blast together and seeing him enjoy, makes me feel so happy!
I think creativity has no limits. It is a great time to be an artist. In today’s world your creativity is no longer limited to drawing and painting on canvas. There are so many other opportunities to use your artistic skills like graphic designing, fashion designing, animation, architecture, illustrator, video game designing and programming, web designing etc... If you are creative the list is endless. No matter what you chose, creativity/art has the ability to make you think outside the box, help you grow and de-stress. I think everyone should explore the artist within them!
You can check out all the details on the websites listed below:
1. https://pitredeepali.wixsite.com/shreyapoladia
2. https://pitredeepali.wixsite.com/shreya-artshow [2020-21, 7thgrade: donated $2100 to DSACT]
3. https://shreyasatelier.wixsite.com/crms-artshow [2021-22, 8th grade: donated ($1030 to Middle school for teachers during Covid-19]
4. https://pitredeepali.wixsite.com/artnbake22 [2022-23: 9th grade: donated $1620 to Safe In Austin]
6. https://shreyasatelier2024.wixsite.com/website [2023-24, 10th grade: donated $4070 to Oak Creek Academy, a nonprofit for kids with disability]
I was featured in a couple of magazines:
-The Artist Corner section in "Life in Seiner Ranch" magazine, June 2022 issue.
-Making a difference section in "Greet Steiner Ranch" magazine, August 2023 issue page 12-13.
