Sophomore Twins Find Passion in Digital Art

Hunched over the desk, pencil in hand, sophomore Audrey Nelson puts the finishing touches on her doodle. It’s of an elf boy, and right before she can draw the character’s long ears someone slides a paper onto her desk. The name on the top is signed Claire. She turns around and slides it towards the mirror image of herself. She’s gotten used to it by now. In fact, she understands how people can mistake them. Almost everything about them is identical: their faces, their haircuts, their glasses, even down to how they both hunch over their notebooks drawing during class. The only thing that is distinguishable between them is the different art styles of the drawings currently residing on their desks.  

The two identical twins make up a team who’ve always used art to not only express themselves and their passions but also as a way to improve each others work. For them it’s a simple partnership of asking for critiques and sharing digital art techniques.

“We’ve never really been annoyed by copying each other,” Claire said, “I will see some way she draws something and be like ‘oh I’d like to draw like that’ and then try it out and see how I like it.”

While the two have no tangible sense of competition when it comes to art, they both have a tendency to compare themselves to each other, even if it is just internally.

“Having a twin who is also an artist You ask yourself ‘are they a better artist than me?” Audrey said.

Despite this neither of them feel any kind of true threat from each other. Both been on a steady path towards improvement and it’s easy for them to catch up to each other. If anything, the partnership has brought them together.

“We used to fight so much but there’s something about sharing our art, we’ve gotten along much better now,” Claire said.

This aspect has also attributed to the lack of tension between to two. For them art is a peaceful zone between them.

“Every artist has that doubt at some points. It’s just kind of a regular thing and you just get through it,” Audrey said.

The two of them fell into this partnership through their shared interest in drawing fanart from their favorite cartoons, videogames and comics. Neither of them can mark exactly when they began to pursue art, but the two started displaying their art online in the seventh grade and moved onto digital art after receiving a drawing tablet last September. Each have a Tumblr art blog that has one thousand followers, but both are quick to humble this number in comparison to other Tumblr artists.

With that said that follower count has made Claire around $120 from people commissioning personalized pieces from her. With the money she’s made, she plans to buy new photoshop brushes and commission pieces from other artists.

“Most of it has been spent on video games so far though,” Claire said.

Audrey had also opened commissions on Monday and already has two orders.

They’ve found their success through an almost constant timeline of drawing, in classes, at home, at friend’s houses. Almost word for word two claimed that if you want to be a successful artist you shouldn’t try be an artist just because you want to draw like another artist you should be an artist because you really enjoy drawing.

“People always ask me ‘how did you end up drawing so well’ and I always say that I  just draw a lot,’” Claire said. “When they say ‘but I want to be as good as you’ what they are really saying is that they just don’t want to put in the work.” But that is how you improve.

As well as drawing everyday, commissions are the first step towards the professional career they both want to achieve. They both plan to go into some kind of job in comic books or animation and are not only confident in their choice, but are also supported by their parents.

“They’ve never told me I had to explore other options or say ‘I don’t want you to be an artist,’” Audrey said. “I feel like that is kind of just like an important part of my identity. Like a lot of people in classes, if they know nothing about me, they know that I draw all the time.”