Fay­ola Fras­er

Long be­fore her sketch­es were stored neat­ly in a fold­er, Jalysa John’s art­work lived on the walls of her fam­i­ly home—pen­cil draw­ings stretch­ing across every avail­able sur­face. What some par­ents might have dis­cour­aged, see­ing it as mis­chief, John’s par­ents saw as some­thing else en­tire­ly: the ear­ly signs of a gift worth pro­tect­ing.

To­day, at 12 years old and a Form 1 stu­dent at St George’s Col­lege, John is re­fin­ing that raw, nat­ur­al tal­ent in­to a skill that con­tin­ues to im­press both at home and in the class­room.

John’s par­ents, Ja­son John and Joy Singh, have been piv­otal in har­ness­ing her tal­ent and en­cour­ag­ing her to de­vel­op it. John re­calls that his daugh­ter’s artis­tic jour­ney be­gan al­most as soon as she could walk and talk. By age three or four, the walls of their home had be­come her first can­vas. Cov­ered in pen­cil draw­ings from cor­ner to cor­ner, the house told the sto­ry of a child dis­cov­er­ing her voice through art. Rather than scold her, her par­ents made a con­scious de­ci­sion to let her ex­plore freely, a choice they now see as piv­otal.

“If I pun­ished her, that pas­sion may have dis­ap­peared,” John mus­es.

He sees the for­ma­tive child­hood years as an op­por­tune time for chil­dren to de­vel­op what is in­stinc­tu­al to them and build a foun­da­tion for a prac­tice that may car­ry them through­out the rest of their lives.

Jalysa John’s love for draw­ing on­ly deep­ened as she grew old­er. She de­scribes the way she has al­ways felt drawn to art: “Ever since I was about five, when I see some­thing I would draw it.” As she got old­er, what be­gan as in­stinct has now evolved in­to a more in­ten­tion­al process. En­ter­ing sec­ondary school, she has built her skills and ex­per­tise, fo­cus­ing on sketch­ing, of­ten draw­ing char­ac­ters she sees, an­i­mals she loves, or trend­ing fig­ures like an­gels, knights, and princess­es.

Her cre­ative process is both mod­ern and me­thod­i­cal. Armed with her phone or tablet, John of­ten turns to Pin­ter­est for in­spi­ra­tion. She search­es for im­ages, stud­ies them care­ful­ly, and then recre­ates them, in­fus­ing her own unique style in­to the fi­nal prod­uct. When she en­coun­ters dif­fi­cul­ty, par­tic­u­lar­ly with no­to­ri­ous­ly tricky fea­tures like hands and feet, where she of­ten feels stumped by the tex­tures, she doesn’t give up. In­stead, Jalysa turns to on­line tu­to­ri­als, which break down each el­e­ment step by step, and prac­tices un­til she gets it right.

Even as a young, bud­ding artist, she has al­ready pro­duced work she is proud of. Her favourite piece to date is an an­gel sketch, a sub­ject she re­turns to of­ten.

Art, how­ev­er, is not the on­ly path John en­vi­sions for her fu­ture. She dreams of be­com­ing a vet­eri­nar­i­an, dri­ven by her love for an­i­mals, a pas­sion that nat­u­ral­ly finds its way in­to many of her draw­ings. She knows, how­ev­er, that art will re­main her con­stant com­pan­ion.

Her ded­i­ca­tion is al­ready strik­ing and rem­i­nis­cent of some­one well be­yond her years. On week­ends, it’s not un­usu­al for her par­ents to find her awake at 1 or 2 am, qui­et­ly sit­ting and sketch­ing at her desk af­ter an idea sparks in her mind. “I open the door and she’s just there draw­ing,” John says. “I don’t tell her any­thing.” That kind of in­trin­sic mo­ti­va­tion is rare, es­pe­cial­ly at such a young age.

At school, her tal­ent has not gone un­no­ticed. Teach­ers and class­mates alike recog­nise her abil­i­ty, of­ten turn­ing to her as an ex­am­ple dur­ing art lessons. Re­cent­ly, her moth­er not­ed that one of her il­lus­tra­tions was used in class as a mod­el piece, an af­fir­ma­tion of her skill and po­ten­tial. Be­yond sketch­ing, she has al­so be­gun ex­per­i­ment­ing with acrylic paints, cre­at­ing serene moon­light scenery pieces that show­case her ver­sa­til­i­ty.

Her moth­er, Joy Singh, has, like her fa­ther, tak­en an ac­tive role in nur­tur­ing her gift. From pur­chas­ing can­vas­es and paints to shar­ing her work with teach­ers and even reach­ing out to art stu­dios, she is com­mit­ted to help­ing her daugh­ter grow. “It’s a gift from God,” she says. “I just try to en­cour­age her and give her the tools she needs.”

For both par­ents, their daugh­ter rep­re­sents what can hap­pen when chil­dren are al­lowed to ex­plore their in­ter­ests with­out fear of fail­ure. John en­cour­ages par­ents not to shy away from their chil­dren ex­plor­ing di­verse in­ter­ests.

“Let them try,” he says, “fail­ing isn’t an op­tion, let them just do the best they can and see where it can go.”

He feels great pride in his daugh­ter’s work, tak­ing her art port­fo­lio to work and show­ing his co-work­ers who re­spond with shock that she is the artist be­hind the beau­ti­ful work it con­tains.

As Jayl­sa con­tin­ues to fill her sketch­book, now neat­ly archived in a fold­er in­stead of scat­tered across her fam­i­ly home’s walls, it is clear that her jour­ney is on­ly be­gin­ning. Whether she be­comes a vet­eri­nar­i­an, an artist, or both, one fact re­mains: her cre­ativ­i­ty, nur­tured by her par­ents with pa­tience and en­cour­age­ment, has al­ready set her apart.

Find Jayl­sa’s art on in­sta­gram

@xoxo._j67