Earlier this week, I got to interview Ms. Begley, one of the great new teachers at Santaluces! This is her first year teaching, and she currently teaches Photoshop. Furthermore, she runs our very own Esports club alongside Mr. Fenda in room 4101.

Ms.Begley wanted to go into teaching because she loves seeing how her students would grow and improve in a field she loves. Earlier in the year, she posted assignments expecting her students to take a few days to finish at least, and they completed them in 20 minutes! At the start of the year, they were not very good with computers but after a lot of learning, they’ve become near professionals! She said it was great to see how far they’d come, and how far they could go.

Over the years, she’s become very good at design, especially with Photoshop, and like anything else, there are some parts she prefers. She loves conceptual work and illustrations because that is where the heart of the art is. Trying to find the story, and the ideas that the artist creates is where she enjoys design the most. This doesn’t just apply to her designs though, she likes to make art in her free time, both painting and animation!

While she only teaches Adobe Photoshop for the moment, she’s hoping that as time goes on, her Photoshop classes can continue into more advanced techniques and skills. Also, she hopes to eventually teach other digital art and media programs, such as Adobe Animate and Illustrator. These programs are certainly not easy to master, but with her classes, she plans for students to become experts in digital art programs like these, allowing them to express themselves to the fullest.

School and art aren’t the only things in her life though, she has a bunch of different hobbies when she isn’t designing! First, she is a big gamer, partly the reason she heads the Esports club here at Santaluces. She also loves photography, saying that she uses a macro lens (a very focused, zoomed-in camera lens) to take close-up photos of bugs! One of her most unique interests though, is mushroom foraging! She will explore the outdoors, searching for the different types of mushrooms that grow here in South Florida. A lot of them are edible too, so she can come home and use them in cooking.

Ms.Begley is a great artist and designer; she is an even better teacher if you want to learn art programs like Photoshop or Illustrator in the future. I speak for all of the school when I say we are excited to see what she will do in the future, and happy that she is one of many amazing teachers that make Santaluces what it is today.