Announcing the 2025 Sketchboard Pro Thesis Sponsorship Award Recipients

Indra Fonseca is a crafty shapeshifter, inspired by the adaptable tricksters, heroes and feral goblins of her childhood books. She is mainly an illustrator, writer, translator, and Riso printmaker, as she runs a small press called Tori Press in Monterrey, Mexico, since 2020. Be it translating, printing or writing, the most important element throughout all her projects is human connection. Indra draws inspiration from literature, folklore, and history, but ultimately tells stories to reflect on her own experiences and emotions, and is always happy to find others who resonate with her storytelling.

Indra’s thesis project, Dripping Sun, is a magical realism graphic novel about Eva, a young, curious gecko who moves to a city transformed by an industrialist narrative of progress. Eva finds it so difficult to adapt that she begins manifesting her rejection of the city through bodily dysfunctions and eerie events in the city itself.

“On the surface, Dripping Sun is a story about geckos, but it has deep roots in my own experiences, from loose thoughts I scribbled in my journal years ago to real situations I was in. I’ve been able to collect these seedlings and grow them into something meaningful with the support of my wonderful MFAVN community during the thesis process. Now, receiving the Sketchboard Pro Thesis Sponsorship award is an incredible encouragement and will also be a huge aid in supporting my thesis production and final exhibition expenses. I’m very excited to complete my project and share it with everyone!”

Haelee Lim is an illustrator from New Jersey and graduated RISD in 2021 with a BFA. She likes to play video games– particularly FPS, though she’s not great with the controllers– and draws inspiration from the stories she’s encountered through them. Despite her natural propensity to the indoors, Haelee greatly enjoys being outside with a cup of iced coffee and a notebook to people-watch. People and environments are what draw her attention the most and she hopes to incorporate the reality that many experience into the stories she tells.

Haelee’s thesis project, a graphic novel titled Romeo Loves, is about Romeo, a young naive cockroach living under the fridge in an apartment who becomes obsessed with love after hearing the first half of Romeo and Juliet. He falls in a one-sided love affair with the apartment’s human tenant and plans to propose to him despite not knowing the play’s tragic ending.

“Romeo Loves is a whimsical tale that explores themes of relationships, abandonment, and infatuation through the lens of a young cockroach obsessed with the idea of love. I’ve been able to use the versatility of the iPad to bring my workspace with me virtually everywhere to work on this comical, yet relatable, story and am so thrilled to have received this award. I intend to use it to improve the quality of my exhibition materials, which range from printed books and merchandise to clay sculptures and a diorama. It means a lot to me that I’ve been given support to bring my thesis to life and am excited for this opportunity to develop my creative experience.”

“At Sketchboard Pro our mission has always been put simply as “to support artists”—a silly pun given the nature of our product, but also something we take to heart as most of us are also working artists.

“With the headlining technology shift over the past couple of years we’ve revised our mission “to support human artists.” It’s more important than ever to foster the creative journeys of young artists. We treasure our partnership with the School of Visual Arts and we’re so grateful to be able to grant support to the incredibly talented winners of this award.”

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