In my free time, I enjoy drawing. Like any kid, I enjoyed arts and crafts. I would always draw little stick figure portraits of my family and the imaginary pets that I wanted us to have. However, I did not start taking it seriously until I was 10 years old. The first drawing that I took seriously and spent an entire week trying to perfect was a portrait of Will from the comic book and television series W.I.T.C.H.. From there, I bought a couple of "How to Draw Manga" instruction books and spent hours every day after school practicing and trying to mimic the techniques. I eventually went on to doing portraits from pictures of friends and family.

As the years passed, I slowly got better and better. During my sophomore year of high school, my art teacher recognized my talent and love of art and recommended that I submit an entry into the Heinz Ketchup Creativity Contest, an annual contest Heinz put on for children K-12. That year, I was chosen as one of the 12 winners, and my design was mass produced on 20 million ketchup packets. I also received a check for $1,000 and my school's art department also received a check of the same amount.

Even though I have been working hard at my hobby for 11 years, I am still not where I want to be in terms of technique. Along with drawing, I also love to paint. I remember when I was younger, everytime around Christmas, my mother, brother, and I would paint wooden ornaments. I would get so frustrated because I could not get mine to look perfect like theirs. In my 6-year-old mind, I could do anything they could do. I would not take "Jasmyne, it's because your brother [Jay] is older," as an answer. My mother would try to comfort me as my face became red from frustration and tears streaked down my face. However, I would not have it. My pint-sized determination would not be stifled by something as trivial as age. As the years progressed, however, I got better. Now as an adult, I understand that by older, my mother meant that my brother had more experience than me and that was not something to get upset over.