Audrey Marsh – Watercolor painter

Age: 18
School: Senior, St. Joseph’s Academy
Extracurriculars: Choir, student newspaper, rebuilding cars, writing, drama, student ministry, volleyball, National Honor Society, Mu Alpha Theta, Beta Club
Dream job: Biomedical engineer
Inspiration: Local artist Carol Arabie

High school senior Audrey Marsh’s hands are intimate with a pencil, and it’s not just because of AP exams and college application essays.

Since her first watercolor lesson in the first grade, Marsh has had her work featured in the Governor’s Mansion and has contributed illustrations to Louisiana cookbook The Pot and the Palette. In the past year alone, she’s completed half a dozen commissions for everything from family portraits to watercolor logos. In March she won the 2014 George Rodrigue Foundation of the Arts Scholarship Contest, which landed her a $6,000 scholarship and her art a place on posters for the Audubon Institute.

But Marsh doesn’t create for the accolades. She brings life.

Ever since attempting her very first portrait—Harry Potter star Emma Watson, when Marsh was in the fifth grade—human forms and expressions have captivated her.

“People inspire me more than anything else,” Marsh says. “I’ve always just really noticed faces. I don’t know why, but I think all of the face is so interesting. I might see somebody just raise an eyebrow and I’m like, Oh, I want to draw that.'”

Though Marsh spent years crafting renditions of people with watercolors and acrylic paints, she sees a future in creating with flesh, bone and machinery. This artist with a love of math and science has her eyes set on a career in biomedical engineering to design and make prosthetics.

“It’s really very artsy, once I looked into it,” Marsh says. “It’s really creative to think through how you can make things fit with an individual person and how it can help them to work. I always have to have my art in there.”