She leans against one of her three white walls as the toxic smell of Sharpie wafts through her room. With the natural light peeking through her large window, senior Safa Khan throws herself into her work as she adds depth to the dark eyes of her most recent art piece, a character from Pan’s Labyrinth, on her growing collection of art drawn on the largest canvases she has access to, her bedroom walls.

“Her style is very precise yet very fluid,” senior Kendall Rogers said. “Her art is very dark and it scares you a little bit.”

Before her switch into dark wall art pieces, Khan focused on characters from her favorite television shows. She first noticed her artistic abilities when she was in kindergarten after comments from classmates, teachers and her family praising her cartoon drawings of Spongebob and other doodles on the margins of her papers.

“I can’t remember a time where she wasn’t creative in her drawing,” her sister junior Inaya Khan said. “Sometimes we look back at things she drew in like third grade, and I could never draw as good even now.”

Khan credits her elementary school art teacher, Caren Purcell for fostering her love for art. From encouraging comments to extra help after school, Purcell was extremely influential in Khan’s growth as an artist and in the creation of her artistic style. Khan hopes to create an art piece for Purcell before she graduates as a thank you for all the work that she did to aid in Khan’s art.

“I was more into studying core classes like math and science because that’s what my parents wanted me to do but she saw that I was pretty good at art,” Khan said. “She encouraged me a lot to have my own style and she would make take extra time to help me.”

While in high school, Khan only had the opportunity to take one Portfolio art class in her sophomore year. Although she hasn’t been able to take all the art classes she wanted to while in high school Khan still focuses on art in whatever free time she can muster up. Some of her most recent work includes drawings on her bedroom walls which were painted white for this specific reason.

“If you go to her house, you will see her walls are completely covered in art,” Rogers said, “I’m not gonna lie, some of it is pretty scary. I will never sleep over there again, but it’s amazing.”

With her heavy academic work, Khan has not been able to completely finish her walls so she has begun allowing others to add their own work to her wall. Her walls are covered with everything from a giant giving tree stretching the height of her room to notes from her dad in his native language, Urdu.

“It was initially me with a theme that I was going to do on my wall.” Khan said.” I didn’t have time to fill out three walls with my own art so, my sisters and my friends that come over, draw on my wall as well.”

Even though Khan does not want a career in art, she definitely wants to keep it up in her free time. From the time that she was a child to recent years, Khan has continually expressed herself through her artwork.

“I love art because I am not the best writing,” Khan said. “Art is just another way to express yourself and your feelings.”