Artifact one was made in my sophomore year of high school, my friend L. Szprejda collaborated on our art 1 final. We had the choice of making an illustrated short story. The name of the story was Allimoni, following our lead, Allimoni and his journey from rowing boats in Venitia, to marrying a rich tourist and spending her riches at the races. All leading to the divorce in which he had to pay alimony checks to his wife. Szprejda and I collaborated, designing each character’s outfit, who they are, and how they fit within the story. This process took hours of sketching and conversation. We had disagreements over little things, even Allimoni’s shirt of all things. Despite the little disagreements, overall we agreed, bounced off one another and made something we were both happy with. While we both made the thumbnail sketches for each page in the story, designed the characters together, I did the final illustrations for the project. Szprejda translated our story into a rhyming tale so it could all flow together well. We couldn’t simply both take turns writing or take turns illustrating for the sake of consistency. We knew we couldn’t each work on every aspect of the project but we were able to organize ourselves, taking on our necessary tasks. While I don’t know that I will go into art professionally, I know that I can enjoy the process of collaborating with others on big projects which translates into any career that requires teamwork.

             For my second artifact, I took to studying my nose. While I have learned a lot through the process of creating finished portraits,  they take time. Looking at past works I can see what I need to work on, to conserve time while also improving upon my skills I do studies. The noses at the bottom of the page were my first go, but as I worked, nose to nose I figured out that my nose has sharp angles, making it easy to block out its volumes in light sketching that I would shade later. While the technique is nothing new, learning to understand such a technique requires the application of it.  I applied this same volume blocking technique to my third artifact, that being my portrait. The artists I referenced for their graphite often used an off-tone paper, sometimes gray, sometimes brown. This allowed them to use white charcoal for highlights. Using white paper that wasn’t a perfect shade of white made it hard to define highlights in a realistic manner, however, I had gel pens I had been using for my alcohol pen work. I was able to use the gel pen for my nose highlights. Art has taught me through these studies that not everything I put time into needs to be glorious, I can improve over time through smaller efforts. Studies allow me to pull back, without the stress of dedicating hours to a piece I am able to focus on a specific issue and find a visual solution to it.

              For my third artifact, I have a self portrait. One of my proudest works as an artist. The process of creating this piece took hours. Putting it down, coming back to it, going back and forth between the two, eventually something was made. This was the first time I had applied a technique I had learned from an art video by Ethan Becker in creating a mask to draw the eyes proportionally at the ¾ angle. I was having trouble with my blending stumps, I wanted to blend a large area without the streaks of every brush of the stump. I tried using a q-tips, tissues. Even though they were somewhat effective, they felt wasteful. I took to the internet. I found that many graphite artists use anything from their fingers, q-tip, tissues and even paint brushes. I have paint brushes. It worked like a charm. Applying the knowledge I had attained from the internet, from my previous studies I was able to make something I am proud of. Looking back, at my artistic work, especially my graphite portraits, I’ve realized something. I realized that in working towards some discipline, in my case art, losing hold of it, losing motivation, you become comfortable with it. I want to create art, I am almost daily now. While I have work in terms of giving a piece my all I’ve nearly escaped a rut I had been trapped in for months. Even though I had gone months without creating anything of personal significance, I came out of that hole. And I hope to continue creating regardless of my future past highschool, whether it is a career or not.

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