He sits in his room trying to find inspiration for his art, but can’t help but look up.

Once he does, the inspiration is there.

Notes dancing around the room, jumping from wall to wall, the sound is in his ears, his head, his soul. The people walking by his window with their earbuds in and their phones in their face keeping them from the true world.

20-year-old Aric Hanson has found the influences for his art: music and the world around him.

“I feel like in today’s society with how plugged in we are with phones and our daily lives in the rat race, we forget to stop and think about what really matters,” Hanson, illustrations major, said. “I try to emphasize things like that in my art, or a strong emotion in my art that I’m feeling.”

Hanson has been at El Camino for almost two years, only having started taking art classes last semester to help expand his horizons beyond pen and marker.

“I’m taking some digital art classes right now and trying to learn more digital stuff,” Hanson said.

Hanson believes that his creative process started a few years ago when he started taking up activities like skating.

“I put a lot of creativity into that (skateboarding), and kind of trying to approach it with my own style,” Hanson said. “Over time I realized it wasn’t really something that wasn’t going to take me where I needed to go, and that I just didn’t really have any opportunities in it.”

Hanson continues the line of artists in his family after his mother and grandfather. His mother, Sheri Delgado, has a Fine Arts degree in illustration from CSU Long Beach, and has been a middle school art teacher in Garden Grove for 14 years.

Delgado knew her son was going to be an artist, recalling an art contest he won in the first grade by drawing his interpretation of a refrigerator with arms.

Even during high school, Hanson used to have art nights with his friends.

“When we lived at our old house, he started these arts nights where his friends would come over to hang out and make art,” Delgado said. “He would have 20-30 people over and he would even hang his friends’ art around his room after.”

Delgado really believes that Hanson has a future in the arts, as he “desires to do it,” and “really puts the time and energy” into his work.

Hanson also had his art featured in a one-night exhibit in downtown L.A. on Jan. 30, being invited by his friend and EC art major, 20-year-old Paul Bodin.

Bodin and Hanson have known each other since their time at Redondo Union High School, but really have become closer as friends in the last year.

Bodin said he has definitely seen an “artistic shift” in Hanson’s work lately, and feels like his work is “definitely coming together,” becoming pieces rather than just sketches.

Hanson hopes to turn his art into a living and put his designs onto more than just exhibit walls.

“I decided I wanted to be putting my efforts into something I care about and enjoy doing,” Hanson said. “I will try to make a living off illustrations, maybe designing skateboards or internet art as well.”