A man wields an axe above his head. The screen flashes, revealing another man sitting on a throne. These frames of hand-drawn animation depict an executioner tasked to execute his friend. Though exhausted from six hours of work, junior Torsia Xu looked fondly on her finished piece, titled “Dutiful.” Xu uses art to express unique stories in a way that words can’t capture.
As a little girl, Xu fell in love with drawing due to the control she had over the final product. Xu started to recreate online works using a watercolor-esque style, taking inspiration from popular artists such as Korean cartoonist Kim Jung Gi.
Xu took multiple art classes over the span of 10 years, but she found herself drawing more outside of them. Her classes enforced strict rules such as always starting with a light sketch and using the rule of thirds. Yet Xu preferred to innovate rather than follow a rigid formula.
“The essence of art is finding your own style and way of doing things through experimentation,” Xu said. “Art classes aren’t conducive to that.”
Starting with basic illustration, Xu explored several mediums from painting to sculpture, but favored traditional illustration and animation.
“Animation combines two of my favorite things, writing and arts,” Xu said. “When painting, I go in completely free of any planning, and I just start painting from one corner. Most of the time I don’t even know how it’s going to turn out.”
In eighth grade, Xu took on her biggest project: a mural at Miller Middle School, outside fashion design and crafts teacher Ana Reed’s classroom. Noticing Xu’s artistic talent through an art assignment, Reed asked her to make a school mural. Xu’s mural included a platter of desserts, spools of thread and a dressed-up mannequin to represent Reed’s classes.
“Her art style has a certain kind of natural quality to it,” Reed said. “There’s not a lot of hard lines, the strokes are organic and the way she blends color gives off a watercolor effect.”
Xu has participated in the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards every year since 2022. In 2025, Xu was a two-time national winner, winning silver for her colored pencil piece “The Forgotten New Year” and gold for her oil painting “Rabbit Cosmetic.” However, Xu doesn’t find much meaning in her awards and finds the process of making her pieces more important than the things she gets out of it.
Art invites Xu to take her mind off draining matters. She often finds herself getting lost in her work anywhere from the familiarity of her bedroom to bustling Santana Row.
“For me, art is a form of escapism,” Xu said. “Sometimes I get so into it that I even forget to eat or sleep.”
Xu wants to continue exploring animation and eventually create her own animated movies. She hopes to put her work out there, gain exposure and encourage others who want to do the same.
“To someone who wants to become an artist, you shouldn’t worry so much about your career,” Xu said. “You should just focus on having fun, and then the ideas will come to you.”
