San Antonio – A teen artist is hoping to turn his hobby of intricate artwork into a thriving career one day.
Cypress Rabke, 14, has been drawing since he was a small child.
Ironically, art wasn’t his favorite subject starting off.
“I never liked art as a little kid,” Rabke said. “But when my godmother’s dog died, I had to draw a picture of that and that was the first picture I really kind of liked.”
“It was surprising because he did push back on art because I think he wanted things to look right the first time he did it but he was too little to get it,” said Angela Rabke, his mother. “Then all of a sudden, he draws this labrador for our friend Martha, and it was crazy! For a 2 1/2-year-old or however he was, it was pretty good.”
Since then, Cypress Rabke has loved drawing and has gotten better and better.
“Around that age where kids start being able to write and really holding their pencil, that is when he started drawing these little stick figures and contraptions and inventions,” Angela Rabke said. “It was always these super inventive drawings of things that I could never imagine in real life with all of these tiny realistic details in them.”
As he got older, his attention to detail improved drastically.
“He was on a teeny tiny soccer team and we would joke that he was the team botanist because he was the kid looking at the little rocks and bugs and plants and never playing soccer,” she laughed.
He draws anything from tiny robotic insects to large-scale detailed reptiles.
Cypress Rabke said he is influenced by his father, who is an architect, and his father’s friends who are all artists as well.
“It is a rewarding feeling and it is nice when I can bring an idea to life and put it on paper and can see it,” he said.
With a love for animals, Cypress Rabke said he also wants to farm.
He held an art show of his drawings where a portion of the proceeds went to environmental causes.
Despite the amount of time it takes him to get his art pieces perfected, Cypress Rabke knows how to balance his doodles with schoolwork, making good grades in class.
“He just needs a pen and a piece of paper and he can create magic anywhere,” Angela Rabke said. “It could be a little bit frustrating maybe to teachers because he always has his pen moving. But his teachers now just see that is him thinking.”
As he strives to reach that career goal of art and farming, he hopes his drawings have a positive impact on others.
“You can be creative,” he said. “You don’t have to be a professional to start drawing. You can just start drawing whatever whenever.”
