Artist's Statement

When I began drawing and painting, it was all just because I had to. As time passed, I realized it was something I really loved to do. I began to challenge myself, using new mediums and drawing more challenging pictures. I began to draw realistically with pencil, and more people began to praise my work, which gave me confidence. My role model was professional artists. Examples from other artists inspired me to do better. There was no one in particular, just pieces of work I thought were truly amazing. These pictures were the ones I wanted to compare to.

Throughout the coarse of my work, my teacher eventually told me I needed to shake things up and do something different. As I looked through my work I did notice that I had stuck with the same theme and it would be nice to see something different. I wanted to create something amazing, so I took my friend's comments into consideration, thinking about painting, using acrylic and magazine clippings. I was bored of my old theme and wanted to start something new, so that's exactly what I did.

My work now, are experiments. I'm trying new things and challenging my style. I still love working with pencil, but pastels, paints, markers, mixed medias and other materials, really shape out to be difficult, but rewarding.I'm trying new things, experimenting what I'm good at and what needs work. I'm changing my style and trying to make my work memorable. I don't want my work to be like any other student's, I want it to be THAT student's work.

Landscape

I decided to shake things up a little. I really do not enjoy landscapes so I wanted to add a little excitment to the assignment. A reflection was the perfect way to go and the colors of the city are just dark enough to really show off the blue of light and red of the sky. I just wanted to have some fun with this one, the city never sleeps.

The Book

So here is the cover. I tried many different things with it, but I really like the black handprint slanted to the side with the mixed colors and paper in the background. I think it adds a little confusion, and makes the eye wonder a little after seeing the handprint, which is what I want. It kinda reminds me of mysteries, which I like.

 This is a complete view of both sides of the family history page.

 On the right is my grandmy. She is an artists and sells them for a living, as well as being a nurse, which she retired from a few years back. She is the one who introduced me to water color and taught me how to paint.

 She usually paints with oils or water colors. She loves landscapes but does really beautiful portraits of families and individuals. Every year for graduation, my sisters have gotten a senior pic of them painted by Grandmy. She's been an extreme influence in my life and is the reason I'm into art. This is why I decided to pay attention to her for my history.

 For my family traditions page, I decided to describe what Christmas night looked like.

 Every Christmas, my family watches the movie, 'It's a Wonderful Life'. It's one of our favorites! I tried to make the page Christmas-like, but simple.

The title of the movie sweeps across both pages as kind of a fun thing. Collages are a fun puzzle for the eye, which makes this entertaining.

Memory

For my memory piece, I decided not to make it look really fancy. Because this was from my childhood, I tried to make it look like it would look interesting to a child, to reflect the mood. I feel like maybe this style is not the best suited for me, but I'm still experimenting, trying to find one I can really play with.