Xiyana Figuera
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Outside the Lab

A personal space for art, singing, class oddities, and the small things that belonged to university life.

Personal Gallery

made in classes, for fun, or while clearing my mind from studying

Art, Experiments & Little Escapes

During my undergraduate years, I took art classes, participated in creative activities, including some rather funny assignments in English class, and occasionally drew or painted simply because I wanted to clear my mind from studying.

This small collection brings together pencil sketches, colorful illustrations, class experiments, and a few things that were made simply for fun. They were never meant to become a professional art portfolio; they are little pieces of my university years and things I enjoyed making outside engineering and research.

Color & Class Experiments

Colorful work and creative classroom exercises.

Colorful macaw artwork showing a bird leaving a cage.

Macaw / Parrot Works

Colorful experiments from my undergraduate years.

Colorful macaw artwork in a forest setting.

Macaw / Parrot Works

Displayed together as related pieces.

Painted orange and red section from a collaborative class exercise.

One Piece of a Bigger Picture

Our professor divided a larger image into individual sections and gave each student one piece to paint. This was my section and the color palette I chose. When everyone's pieces were brought together, they revealed the complete animal, with each section interpreted in a different palette.

Sketches & Quiet Moments

Quieter, more informal drawings from undergraduate years.

Pencil penguin drawing.

Penguin Study

A pencil penguin drawing from my undergraduate years.

Deer drawing in vegetation.

Deer Study

A drawing from my undergraduate years.

Classroom Fun

Creative things that came out of classes and were memorable because they were funny, playful, or unusual.

Penguins Cinema 4D family film festival class project image.

English class creativity

Penguins Cinema 4D

One of the more unexpected parts of my English classes was that we occasionally made creative, and rather funny, projects like this.

Playful Illustrations

Drawings made primarily for fun.

Emperor penguin drawing wearing a crown and holding a scepter.

Emperor Penguin

One of the more playful drawings from an undergraduate art class.

Cat sketch from undergraduate years.

Cat Sketches

A pair of drawings from my undergraduate years.

Painted cat drawing from undergraduate years.

Cat Sketches

Shown together as a small pair.

Sometimes I Ended Up on Stage

Campus singing competitions · Undergraduate years

Singing was another part of my undergraduate years that had absolutely nothing to do with engineering. I enjoyed singing, and every once in a while that meant signing up for a campus competition and ending up on stage.

I never treated it as something professional—it was simply something I enjoyed doing alongside university life. These are two little pieces of that time that happened to survive.

Campus Singing Competition

Autumn 2018 · 3rd Place

A longer surviving recording from a live campus singing competition during my undergraduate years.

Another Campus Stage

Spring 2019 · Campus Singing Competition

This short clip is all that survived from another campus singing competition I participated in during Spring 2019.