SI #2

All my life, I’ve struggled due to defining myself through my academic performance. This self portrait is heavily rendered and colored with oil pastels in order to emphasize how I am a real person beneath my academics. However, there are stickers plastered onto me, as well as my academic coursework in the background. The stickers are the ones you get on your schoolwork for doing a good job, and were made by tracing shapes onto tracing paper, then transferring them onto blank paper to be cut out. I had to do this in order to match the outline of my body accurately. The stickers are intentionally flat with no shading to show how people are often watered down to their grades, with their personality and mental health being dismissed. I cut up my old schoolwork to make into stars in the background - most of them being my Honors Chemistry work. This is because Honors Chem was the first class I failed a test in, throwing a wrench into the “perfect student” image I worked hard to cultivate.

Experimentation

Communication:
What I am trying to communicate in this work is dependence on academics for a sense of worth. For example, the stickers are stickers you usually get when you get a good grade and them being plastered on me show how they define me over time. The more you get these stickers (representation of academic validation) the more you start to become dependent on academics for who you are and to feel good. The happy expressions on the stickers contrast with the actual solemn expression on my face.

Artist Research:
I was particularly inspired by this one artist named Si Ku - I really loved the surrealistic, dreamy worlds they created in their drawings. The aspects of their paintings I admire the most is the use of vibrant color, world building, and the swirly shapes they utilize. I was highly inspired by the color usage to use unrealistic colors for my SI.

Materials Exploration:
I am starting out with oil pastels - my favorite medium, and I am exploring blending and creating colors to get the result I want. I understand that there's a limited amount of colors for oil pastels that can't accommodate the range of colors I want to express so I am trying to push these oil pastels to the fullest to still illustrate the vibrancy I want. I am experimenting with the texture for markmaking.

Ideation:
This was the most concrete idea I had in my head when thinking of the SI process - I knew I definitely wanted to utilize stickers in some way to express a deeper meaning. Stickers seem so simple and surface level, so to communicate a deeper meaning with them adds an interesting contrast. Especially with the good work stickers you get for good grades - those seem so common and basic at first because everyone sees them. It was only until I started illustrating out the stickers that such small things can define so much of our worth and build up to bigger things.

Technical development:
For technical development, I struggled a bit with getting the right shades and the colors I wanted to convey. However, I started realizing the importance of white as a transition color and how it helps to elevate the drawing. I started developing more of a technique of drawing intentional highlights for more details, and for more of a striking appearance. I utilized the creamy texture of the oil pastels to achieve the dreamy look I wanted, and how to layer the colors so they all stand out.

SI #2

Experimentation

Notes 9/14/23