“My Name is Fernando Orozco Cantu and I’m currently incarcerated in The State of Texas. I have been in prison for more than 2 Decades. Here is my Story of how I became an artist. In 2007, while in AD-SEG, an inmate who had no money to send a Father’s Day Present couldn’t find anyone to draw a picture of his deceased mother for him. Nobody else would draw one for him because he didn’t have any money. I asked him if I could look at his family pictures. I decided to give it a try and see if I could do it on my own. I had always wanted to learn how to do portraits, I always loved art but never tried it Before. I wanted to do a portrait in color, so I pulled out four sheets of drawing Paper and started to draw the outline. Once I saw that the outline came out good, I went on and started to go over with color pencil. It took me almost 6 full days, but at the end of the journey the results showed me that I could do what I never thought I could do, draw faces in color portrait style. When I sent the picture back to the inmate, he started to cry because he saw a portrait of his deceased mother. The inmate went to show a few other inmates who were there and next thing you know I was being asked to do portrait work for them. I’ve been doing this style of art for almost 19 years now. It’s also helped me create my own style, do original watercolors work, and make my own colors. I hope you all like my work and thank you all for this opportunity to show my art. May god bless all of you” – Fernando Orozco
