Selected work #2

Dimensions: 9 x 12 inches

Materials:

Drawing pencils (HB, 2B & 4B), red colored pencil, pale blue and silver pastel pencils, watercolor paper, watercolors, and glitter.

Ideas:

• The black watercolor texture is meant to convey the heavy much one's mind is in in moments like these.

• The girl has minimal shading and no color while the acne is portrayed as glitter means that nothing else matters in the moment. Completely energy & attention sapping.

• The internal demons (in hair) are also in color because they too are energy & attention sapping, as they are telling you how nasty you look (and feel).

• The glitter is blue and red to represent anger and sadness.

• The shooting star is meant to represent that the only silver lining in this moment is wishing for it to go away and have "normal" skin.

• I did hearts as the big zits because they can seem to throb in this state of attention.

• ALSO,  the acne is portrayed as hearts and sparkles because it should, in my opinion, be a sign of "coming of age", and not be shamed on.

Processes

I did a few thumbnail sketches first to see what my best option would be for a piece "about acne and self-esteem". Then, I did a rough sketch on sketch paper, and transferred the first draft onto multimedia paper using a light board. However, this first draft ended up being REALLY bad, as the human proportions were all off, so I turned it into a watercolor investigation piece (it can be seen under "Sustained Investigation"). Then, I realized I should probably have used watercolor paper for watercolors. (Well, obviously.) I made the human proportions more realistic on the sketch paper, (because I actually used references this time), and transferred that onto watercolor paper. I carefully added the black watercolor, then pasted on the glitter and colored in the little demons and the star.

Relation to Inquiry

On the topic of Dark Fantasy, oftentimes, we obsess over the things we cannot change, but are somehow made to believe by society that we can. Especially when these things are viewed in a negative light by others. Because of this, we start to view ourselves in a negative light, and such obsessions can have lasting impacts beyond our teenage years. It's "Dark", because of the way it can make us feel inside. It relates more to mental health.