AP 2D Design
"Note to Self"
"Note to Self" address insecurities about sexuality, body size and appearance, and self-harm.
"Make it Blue!"
"Make it Blue!" is a piece inspired by Merryweather, one of the three fairies from Aurora. The fairies would debate over which color to make Aurora's dress, and Merryweather would say "Make it Blue!" This piece expands on the "wanting to make it blue", or wishing that one's green or brown eyes were blue. According to YouGov, blue eyes are found most attractive to people with brown, grey, green, hazel and blue irises.
"Haunted"
"Haunted" is an acrylic painting that illustrates the feeling of being insecure. I used dark colors to create a sense of unhappiness and changed the values of colors in the background to create flow and movement.
"Under the Influence"
"Under the Influence" is a mixed media piece using newspaper, mod podge, and acrylic paint. It is inspired by a study done by the University of California, Santa Barbara, and the University of Pittsburgh. In the study, they found that waist size is the major determinant of female bodily attractiveness. The study's results illustrated that the average waist size of a female is twenty-nine inches, but the most attractive waist size is twenty-six and a half inches. The study concludes that for a female's attractiveness to reach a maximum, waist sizes must shrink, but hip size must not shrink in parallel.
In the painting, the sizing tag letters are painted over the newspaper on the left side of the canvas. The girl in the center represents the insecurities behind sizing tags and social media's influences on body image.
"Counting Calories"
"Counting Calories" is another mixed media piece, focusing on the effects that social media has on weight. On the left side of the canvas is newspaper, which symbolizes the media. Painted over it are weight loss apps, which in addition to social media, emphasize an ideal body image and weight. They encourage and track weight loss by restricting diets and calorie intake, which is an unhealthy form of weight loss and in many cases leads to the development of eating disorders. In the center of the canvas is the ideal stomach size after using weight loss apps to count her calorie intake and restrict her diet. Aside from using mod podge to glue the newspaper to the canvas, the main medium I used was acrylic paint.