Will Parker IV
Wakefield High School
Will Parker was in first grade when he received his first art commission. His former preschool teacher asked him to draw a dragon and offered to pay him $5 for it. He happily obliged.
“That was a sign for me that I was really talented in art,” says the Arlington teen, who counts the Cartoon Network, DC Comics and video game animation among his early influences.
One of his fondest childhood memories is drawing alongside his father, a lieutenant colonel in the Air Force. They bonded over pictures of cars and planes.
Parker’s creative drive continued through high school, culminating in a series of regional Scholastic Art awards. Much of his work focuses on nature and people from different cultures or ancient civilizations, rendered in watercolor, gouache and ink.
“When I’m in the zone [drawing], the focus brings me peace,” says the 18-year-old, whose paintings have also been featured in juried exhibitions at Marymount University and the Montpelier Arts Center in Laurel, Maryland.
He graduated as an AP Scholar with Honor and now heads to the Maryland Institute College of Art, where he wants to major in illustration or animation. He recently began teaching himself to work in digital media.
Parker has other talents, too. He has taken piano lessons since fifth grade and won third place in Arlington County’s 2020 regional science fair, for a project that gauged the effect of music frequencies on chia-seed plants.
He was a member of Wakefield’s track team and Spanish Honor Society, finishing high school with a 4.18 GPA.
His AP Art teacher, Margot Shteir-Dunn, calls him a “wise soul” whose insight is always astute. “When he asks for constructive feedback, I can feel he’s really absorbing what I’m saying,” she says. “He really takes the time to make meaningful connections between his artwork’s theme and tone.”