In just a few months, sixteen-year-old Hayley Connolly has become something of an Instagram celebrity with her striking cartoon portraits inspired by the selfies her followers sent her. Hayley, who lives in northeast England, draws in her spare time after school.
Her bold illustrations have won her over 10,000 followers, and with her account (@oxtlxnes) highlighted on the Instagram blog last week, many more will surely follow soon.
“I usually draw based on requests, but sometimes I will draw my idols, like Cara Delevingne,” Connolly told the Instagram blog. “My illustrations are mostly portraits, so they are all about the facial features. I try to make them a mixture of realistic and non-realistic, and I love to make them look almost cartoon-like.”
Connolly invites her followers to send her requests and selfies to her personal account (@haylbeth). She then picks a portrait at random, turns it into a bold cartoon version and uploads it into her artistic account (@oxtlxnes). She has done 300 of them so far.
Connolly thinks Instagram offers a great opportunity for teens to showcase their art. “I think it is really important to see art made from teens,” she told the Instagram blog. “We haven’t made our life choices yet, so we’re looking at the world in many different ways. We’re really in the height of our creativity because we are growing up.”