Cami Dunlap is studying engineering at Virginia Peninsula Community College, but enjoys drawing in her spare time.
“It’s my escape. It helps me chill out,” she said.
Her artwork caught the attention of VPCC videographer and photographer Eric Chi, who was walking past her as she was drawing during a break between classes. That chance encounter led to Dunlap creating a coloring book for the College’s Marketing and College Relations department.
“When Eric Chi showed me some of Cami’s art — which was of a T-Rex in a sweater — I thought she would be able to draw (College mascot) Gillie the Gator as well,” said Eric Pesola, the interim associate vice president for Advancement and director of Marketing. “She has a very unique and original style, and we were looking for someone who could illustrate the Gillie coloring book, and we met Cami at just the right time.”
The response has been more than she could have expected, especially since it was her first coloring book.
“Through social media, it’s actually gotten me a lot of recognition,” she said.
One of her mother’s friends, who is a first-grade teacher in Utah, saw Dunlap’s work and asked her to create coloring pages for her students.
“I had been looking for a teaching activity to do, and when I saw that, I knew it was perfect,” said Barbara Anderson.
Dunlap made a different coloring page for each teacher on Anderson’s team.
“I liked the style. I liked how she was able to be continuous with the looks of the pages,” said Anderson, who has known Dunlap’s mother since high school. “That’s what I was looking for with these coloring pages.”
Dunlap spent kindergarten through third grade on the Peninsula before moving to Utah. When her father retired after a 15-year career in the Air Force, the family returned to the area. She spent her last 2 ½ years of high school at Tabb, where she graduated in 2025. She just finished her first year at VPCC.
She’s always dreamt of creating a color book, and her time in Utah fueled her desire to work with children.
“Growing up in Utah, there are large families,” she said. “So, I’ve always wanted to have children, and I’ve always been good with kids and preferred to work with kids. They have a sort of imagination that I feel a lot of people lose as they get older.”
When she enrolled at VPCC, she admitted to feeling a little insecure because many of her friends went to large, four-year universities far from home. The success she’s having, particularly regarding the coloring book, has changed that.
“This is just proving to me that It was (the right call),” she said. “I wouldn’t have changed it at all.”
She’s always been interested in art, and remembers a key encounter with a family member at a young age. She was coloring a flamingo, but hers was “purple or green, not a flamingo color.” The family member asked why she wasn’t using pink because that’s the color of flamingos.
Dunlap’s response was, “Well, this isn’t a flamingo, this is my flamingo,” stressing “a” and “my.”
“I feel you could make anything yours, and it could be anything you could think of,” she said.
While Dunlap is on an engineering track, she might go into business. Or if she continues to draw interest from her artwork, she might go that route.
“If it could be proven to me that (art is) something I could do reliably, I would 100% drop anything to do it,” she said.
That’s possible. Anderson said she’s interested in working again with Dunlap. And the College has asked her to create artwork for next year’s comicon.
“I hope doing this will give me a little bit more confidence to post my art on social media,” she said. “I tend to stay away from social media.”
The experience has helped Dunlap grow as an artist, especially in learning how to cater to what people want.
“Sometimes what you think is best is not going to always be what somebody wants,” she said. “It’s a good learning experience to know how to adjust your style and find ways to incorporate what other people want. It definitely challenges your creativity.”
Anderson enjoyed working with Dunlap.
“She listened really well to my feedback,” Anderson said. “She was really good at listening to what I was looking for.”
Dunlap would like to transfer to a four-year school after VPCC, but doesn’t have one in mind, nor is she in any rush.
“I really want to take my time in community college and explore all the opportunities that it offers,” she said. “I think there’s something much more intimate and magical about a smaller school and the relationship you can build with faculty and staff that you might not get in a very large school.”
Such was the case when a chance encounter with a staff member led down an unexpected path.
