Teen sticks together boat drawings to create new business

Nick Allen, a 16-year-old high school junior, likes to draw boats.

"I live in a fishing community," Allen said. "Been around boats my entire life. Drawing them was even cooler."

Allen said he started drawing around the age of 12. First it was speedboats. About a year and a half ago he "moved into the commercial fishing side of art."

"I drew a seiner first and it was terrible," he said. "To see the progress over a year and a half, it's insane."

He's now making stickers of his artwork, and advertising them for sale online.

Allen said most of his sketches happen either at his drafting table at home, or at school. He pictures a boat in his head with a scientific focus on the construction. "I really try to focus on my rigging and my boom," he said. "I start at a baseline, and try and measure my lines. Make sure they are not sloppy."

A lot of the boats he draws are a mash-up, "multiple boats that I see in real life, and make them into my own."

He's made appearances in his art, too. "That's me in my raingear, and that is the other deckhand in his raingear," Allen said of the Charlene Marie, one of his sketches. The inspiration came from a job his cousin got him working a boat. He's going out this summer, too.

Allen is a child of Wrangell. "My dad owned the sawmill at 13-Mile," Allen said. His mom works at the hospital.

The inspiration was all around him. "Growing up, my buddies' dads, they fished. I always liked trout fishing. It was destined."

Allen said drawing makes him feel more relaxed, and creative. It also helps with problem solving, especially in school. "Sometimes you have to have a creative solution."

Allen got the idea to make and sell stickers in January after he drew a log shovel machine for his dad. "My older brother said that would be awesome as a sticker," he said. "I released the log shovel sticker first, and that did OK." Then Allen said he drew a specific boat sticker called the Summer Rose, and that sold out very fast.

Allen does 10 stickers of the same design at a time, and sells them for $5 each. He uses an online vendor to produce the stickers. On average, it's been taking him two to five days to make a sticker-oriented boat design - he has to simplify the design to "pop" on a smaller scale.

"I draw the boat first on a page, then I crop it," Allen said. The final result is a die-cut sticker of the boat.

He's releasing the stickers on a limited edition basis. Once he sells out, he moves on to a different design. Next up is a boat called the Williwaw. After that, "I want to draw a trawler or a crabber."