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Laurance Rippy of Greenburgh doodled his first drawing at age five. He used crayons on the bathroom wall to draw dinosaurs, angering his mother. A rag and soapy water turned the canvas back into a wall, but an artist was born.
As the years rolled by he took anything he could get his hands on and drew, from printer paper to the notebook margins of his school notebooks.
Since last May, Rippy, 23, has taught children's drawing classes at the Theodore D. Young Community Center in Greenburgh. He teaches children, aged 6 to 12, "watered-down" art skills and techniques, as he called it. Summertimes find him teaching computer classes to children aged 10 to 14 at Westchester Community College.
An incessant, learner and natural teacher, Rippy does freelance computer work while working part-time at the White Plains Apple store. Even there he holds workshops once or twice a week.
Rippy enjoys giving back to the Greenburgh community where he was born and raised. He spent his life, aside from his college years, living in the same house and attended each of the Central 7 schools.
In 2007, he acquired his Associate's degree in Illustration and, two years later, earned his Bachelor of Fine Arts in Computer Animation from the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City.
In the future, Rippy would love to own an animation and illustration studio complete with a skateboard rink and computers lining the office.
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