Students at Leisure: Ava Deichman ‘26OT – Portrait Painting

Since she was a little girl, Ava Deichman ‘26OT has been interested in art, always drawing, sketching and painting. Four years ago, she painted a portrait of her mom as a Mother’s Day gift and posted the finished work on Instagram. That’s when things got interesting.

Others saw the portrait on Instagram (@avadeichman) and liked it so much that she started receiving requests. Before she knew it, by social media and word of mouth, she had a side gig painting portraits for others.

“I’m still selling mostly through social media. I get a lot of requests when the holidays come around. I have very reasonable prices and it’s going pretty well,” said Deichman, originally from Northeast Philadelphia who earned her undergraduate degree in recreational therapy from Temple University.

Deichman typically does two or three portraits a month, mostly of dogs and cats and the occasional lizard. Around the holidays, she gets between 15 and 20 orders.

“It doesn’t seem like that much, but when you’re in grad school and you don’t have that much time on your hands, it takes up a lot of time,” she said.

Deichman offers options for customers using acrylic paint on paper or canvas. She has secured requests to paint on canvas tote bags and wood and she tries to be an accommodating artist for her customers.

“I never really sit down and finish a portrait in one session. If you put them together, it’s probably two to three hours each to complete one,” she said. “It takes multiple sessions. I get easily distracted, so I like to start more than one at a time and work on them like that.”

In addition to her lifelong attraction to art, Deichman loves working with people, which is why she chose recreational therapy as a career. But jobs in that profession are hard to come by, so she switched paths and enrolled in the Occupational Therapy program at Drexel University’s Elkins Park Campus.

“It’s a good program overall and the pass rate for the OT exam is I believe 99 percent. It’s close to where I live and I can drive there every day. Location and the quality of the school were important to me,” said Deichman, who was recently accepted into the OT honors program.

Deichman also has a part-time job as a group therapist at a psychiatric facility working mostly with adolescents. That keeps her even more busy, which in turn reinforces the notion that her painting not only earns her some extra income but also provides an outlet to relieve the daily stress that comes with both school and work.

“I think it’s important, especially in grad school, to have an outlet like that. It gives you a sense of identity outside of school,” she said. “It’s important for grad students specifically to take an hour or two a day to do a hobby or physical activity. Grad school is such a stressful time, especially for people like me who also work. You don’t have a lot of time to yourself and you can get lost and lose yourself in the stress of it all.”

Her short-term goal, given all that’s on her plate right now, is to get an Etsy account up and running to reach a broader audience for her portrait business.

“After I graduate and I have a full-time job, I’d like to keep painting if I can find the time. I plan on keeping this hobby hopefully my whole life,” she said. “I really do love painting. I’ve been doing it for so long I just want to improve my skills as I get older.”