Finding inspiration in pink flamingos, a blue, purple and green giraffe and rainbows

First grader Stella Kambach, who has four dogs and two cats at home, likes both animals and art.

Her plan is to become a veterinarian and an artist when she grows up so that she can do paintings of the animals she takes care of.

“I like to draw animals,” Stella said. “I mostly draw cats and dogs. I drew my Saint Bernard (named Daisy) for a school project.”

Stella, a Distance Learning Academy student, enjoys doing art at home both for school and for herself. She often draws and paints with her mom, Victoria, who is also artistic.

“I’ve always been artistic ever since I was a little girl,” Victoria said. “I used to watch my father drawing when I was growing up. He was always drawing and showing me little tricks. Stella watches me and get inspired. We been drawing away a lot in the last year, especially with the quarantine.”

One of Stella’s favorite paintings so far this year is one of a pink flamingo, which she did as part of an enrichment activity where student read and learned about the birds in Donna Berghahn’s class.

“Stella is an artist and loves to dabble with paint,” Berghahn said. “Recently we learned about pink flamingos and she created a wonderful painting.”

As part of the project, Stella learned why flamingos are pink.

“When flamingos are first born they are white and then they have to eat shrimp to turn pink,” Stella explained.

Another painting Stella is proud of is a beautiful rainbow with star-shaped clouds in a blue sky that she made for her mom. Stella’s favorite project for art class with Leah Mednick was a collage of a giraffe in Africa. Stella’s giraffe was blue, purple and green.

“Stella sends me photographs of her art projects after every DLA art assignment and I really look forward to receiving them,” Mednick said. “She always has a very creative take on the assignments, and I can tell she completes them with joy. I especially loved her Eric Carle inspired giraffe. Stella adds a lot of detail to her artwork to make it special.”

Stella sometimes hangs her finished artwork on the refrigerator. Most of the time, however, she tapes the art on the walls and windows in her room and pretends the room is an art museum.

Stella is also a good writer, Berghahn said. When the assignment was to write about something the students were good at, Stella wrote a book about painting. The book included information on what materials she uses to paint and how she mixes colors.