Embedded Files
Disclaimer: Some of the media is digital. Only to contribute to a physical final piece.
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Stilled
Stilled
Materials: Colored pencil, watercolor paper
This was a still life composition for Art and Composition. In receiving this assignment, I wanted to do something different as a still life. I imagined how it could be given direct gravity and meaning, rather than a meaning given by deep analysis of a still scene. While walking on the road, I was struck by inspiration just like this raccoon was struck by a moving car. The fact is that we don't often even see raccoons in daylight, as they are nocturnal scavengers. To see the aftermath of this vehicular slaughter is a reminder of what human society has become, making animals killed by machines and cast to the side of the road a normal fact of life. I tried to capture this meaning in the piece, not changing much about the scene except focusing in on the animal with a vignette, forcing one to be pulled into the corpse, unable to look away.
Jade Hepta Rose
Jade Hepta Rose
Materials: Paper, sketchbook, graph paper, pencil, acrylic paint markers, pen, ruler; 3d printer, online print databases; plywood, glue, clamps, hardwood, table saw; orbital sander, sandpaper, sanding block, table belt sander; wood stain powder, water, 500mL measuring flask, tablespoon, mixing spoon, foam brush, wet and dry towel, foam polishing pad; polyurethane gloss, foam brush
The Hepta Rose was exhibited in Blackwell Street's High School Student Art Show 2026!
For my second Independent Study, I made a model guitar, a wood body and neck fitted with 3D-printed pieces. I had been coming up with this design since the summer before my junior year, sketching ideas for it in my Sophomore year sketchbook. The first thing I did for the project is create the 3d printed pieces. I did this to form the body around the measurement of the pickups. I also used my personal guitar for some measurements of the body. I then spent some time creating sketches of the shape, perfecting it, and then making the full-size tracing on graph paper. I then went to Carpentry with the finished drawings and had them cut out of wood to form the body and neck. While I constructed the body, I also cut out the neck piece and sanded it to a thin profile. When the body was ready, I spent a while sanding the surfaces and bevel. I finished the entire body and then stained parts of it with Rose Red colored stain. After it dried, I used polyurethane to seal the stain. I attached the neck to the body and then began continuously sealing it and polishing until it was sufficient. At the same time, I fixed all of the plastic pieces to the guitar. At this point, I was done enough to make a logo and branding. I simply named my company Jade Guitars, making the logo out of the same shape for each letter of JADE but with different transformations. When I was completely finished, I created a roll of photos for it. I included multiple angles, getting full shots of the project as well as highlighting its intricacies. I was extremely happy with the outcome!
I had many issues during the project which I either solved or chose to work with. I basically have never worked with wood in my life, as well as 3d modeling, so this was very new. From the beginning, I had formatting issues with the 3d models, as well as struggling to find the exact parts online. I had to make the headless tuner bridge on my own with a single saddle. This one was not supported because of my lack of knowledge and began to break. Also, at one point, I dropped the instrument on its front side and all of the knobs broke. I had to remove them, sand, and then apply more top coats. I also simply decided to leave it as is because it would be too much effort to remove and replace it. When I was trying to draw the body shape, I couldn't get it perfect. I resolved to working on paper rather than photoshop and this helped me. After creating the body piece, I had less issues; sanding was just very time consuming. I had a huge time constraint. Moving toward the end of the project, I had to make decisions on what to include and what not to. I decided to not add frets or fret markings to the neck at all, deciding to make it a fretless guitar that just simply needed strings put onto it. These would have both been difficult and time-consuming endeavors; fret placement is very specific to be able to get the right note out of the guitar, and I would have to get the measurements perfect for my specific neck. I would have also had to buy frets to put onto it. I also did not include pegs for a shoulder strap or panels on the backside to cover the electronics cavities, but neither of those matter much.
I've loved guitars since i was probably 8 years old, getting my first one for my 9th birthday. Ever since then, I've evolved into the musician I am today. The guitar is very important to me and my identity. I remember watching countless videos of luthiering and guitar making, and I always imagined making one of my own. I'm very glad that I was able to bring my childhood dream to fruition. I'm overall extremely proud of this project and the work that I put in for it. I now want to make even more guitars in the future, which I may or may not do. Either way, it was an amazing experience, and I have a great final product to show!
Blnaca Portrait
Blnaca Portrait
Materials: Sketchbook, colored pencil; pencil,
Posca paint markers, acrylic paint, brush
(pronounced bull-NAH-cha)
This was an independent project for Design. I originally sketched this, which made me want to paint the same thing at a large scale. I took a few different bright cool-toned colors and used them for either fill or outline. I then painted the background with a few coats of deep blue. I displayed the piece at my booth at the very first MCST Art Show.
The creature is an evolved form of octopus that exists millions of years in the future after the death of humans. They eventually form sentient and take over the world just like us! But somehow, they need our help? Read more of the story on the Music tab, and listen to the tracks if you like!
In Their Hands
In Their Hands
Materials: Photoshop; plywood base, spackle and knife, primer, projector, pencil; acrylic paint, brushes, and hands!
For this independent project, I wanted to make a piece that was a protest. I wanted to stress that if the world remains in the hands of the rich, it will just be destroyed and used for profit. The idea was originally constructed online in a 1:3 ratio. I asked the Carpentry academy to cut a 2x6 foot ply sheet for me to use, since there wasn't a canvas available at that ratio. It's the biggest canvas I've used so far. It had some knotholes in it, so I spackled and filled them, subsequently priming the surface. I followed by projecting the image onto the wood and lightly tracing. After that, I was able to paint the scene using multiple layers, going from the top and left to the bottom and right. I couldn't blend the colors as easily as I could on photoshop, so I decided that I would use my hands, giving the piece its name. I displayed this at the 2025 MCST Art Show.
I'm very happy with this piece! However, I think the online mockup was a bit better. I also recognize that the styles are distinct from one another and can coexist. The physical piece also has much more grandeur and the texture of my fingers is much more interesting.
You Are Here
You Are Here
Materials: Hard paper, acrylic paint, large and small brush,
Posca paint markers, fingers, notebook paper, pushpin head
I made this piece with my friend Ella in Art & Composition. The assignment was to make a piece inspired by Edel Rodriguez's creative process. On some works, he paints random strokes and then transforms the piece into whatever he sees in it. In the beginning, we chose to paint the paper black. This made us decide to do something at night or in space, and made a large, slightly deliberate swirl across the paper. Then, we applied multiple colors of blue and white and thought the swirl could be the Earth, in a surrealistic depiction. We went along with this, and I used my large brush to stamp color on to make land and clouds. We then added a paper and pin that says "You Are Here", inspired by pictures of the Milky Way with the same inscription, suggesting the viewer's presence in the piece to add to the grandeur. To complete the painting, we made a bright golden sun with Posca paint marker and then dotted on the black outer space with white and multicolored dots for stars. Ella then added the final touch to bring the mystery of the piece to the top: an alien space ship!
This was a fun challenge since it can be hard for me to draw something using this method of scribbling and searching. I'm very proud of this piece, because it's good and also because it was difficult.
Eyes Of the Beholder
Eyes Of the Beholder
Materials: Watercolor paper, pencil, colored pencil
This was my Personal Composition for A&C1. I worked almost completely with colored pencil. I left it for days at a time before applying more because it just took so long to do. I went a few weeks past the due date to actually finish it. The story or message behind it is that your perception creates your reality, and nothing exists outside of what you can see or have perceived in your life. Without your senses, nothing really exists. I tried to depict an explosion of color coming out of my point of view, including my third eye. I combined magenta, cyan, and yellow, the wavelengths of light used to make visible light. I represented this light as reality existing in nothingness. The piece was shown in the 2026 Youth Art Month exhibit at the County College of Morris!
The Finger
The Finger
Materials: Paper, pencil, Posca markers
Another piece for Art and Comp. This assignment was to zoom in on something and show a lot of detail. Your subject should be natural. I chose a human finger, looking into the fingerprint. I tried to highlight the intricacies of the human body and the imperfections that everyone has. I sketched the lines inside of the finger and traced them, interchanging between one lighter posca and a darker one. I then used even darker and even lighter markers for the shading and smudged them to fade.
Quaternity
Quaternity
Materials: Mounting paper, scissors, glue,
watercolor paper, pencil, gouache paint,
brush, colored pencil, oil pastel, markers
This was a station project for Art and Comp. The assignment was to create an image using 4 parts, each of those parts created with a different medium. I started by mounting 4 pieces of watercolor letter-size paper about an inch apart on mounting paper and cut it to size. I taped the ends of each paper to make sure I didn't severely mess up the paper underneath. I then sketched a long shot of a tall tree and went over it with each of the last 4 materials above.
This was my first ever independent project for Design. I had been building a universe about a species of sub-humans who evolved from neanderthals to live in caves far underground, so I was most inspired to make something about them. I made this drawing on Kleki.com and then projected it onto a primed canvas, where I traced the lines. I then left it that way and didn't color the final piece, feeling it preserved more detail that way. This piece was displayed at the 2024 Teen Arts festival hosted at CCM.
Explore the lettering system of Ngia'auang, the language of the Ngia. Find translations for words and make sentences!
Many words are short, representing simple concepts to branch off of. Conjunction of multiple of these words along with new letters can make a new word that makes sense in context.
Sustainapartments
Sustainapartments
Materials: Cardboard, box cutter, pen, self-healing mat, tape; primer, acrylic paint, brushes
For my third Independent Study, I chose Architecture. I made an apartment complex out of cardboard. Urban design and planning has been an interest of mine for a while, so I thought this would be a good opportunity to practice it. At the end of my freshman year, in Biology with Mrs. Martin, we were given a sustainability project. We were to create a house, community, or building that demonstrates 10 sustainable practices. I made an apartment complex and included: Full Green Roofs, Partial Green Roofs, Trees for carbon, Electric grills, Stairway to sidewalk, Bike driveway, Community Garden, Community Compost, Energy-efficient LEDs, and Solar Power. Once I was done with it, I kept the original drawings and taped them into my sketchbook. Fast forward to now: I had to figure out something to do for my architecture project, and I remembered this. So, i decided to make it physical. On the assignment, it says I can get extra credit for a model of my building, and I knew I had to get it.
To start the project, I had to first bring out my old sketchbook with the drawings in it. I realized that the drawing was to scale and drawn on graph paper, so I decided I would make the physical model to a scale factor of 4 (1/4 inch (one square) = 1 inch), since I wanted it to be a very grand project. I started making each cardboard piece to this scale, cutting out the base and then constructing each of 3 buildings on top of it. When the buildings were standing, I cut out the multiple pieces of the circular conversation pit in the middle of the plaza. Then, I primed the entire thing multiple times. When it was sufficiently coated, I painted a base coat color on every section of the model. I let that dry and then measured out smaller details like windows and painted them
Alladoxaphobia
Alladoxaphobia
Materials: Canvas, pencil, acrylic paint, brushes, pen
Catnip
Catnip
Materials: Sharpie, carpet swatches, razor, cardboard,
hot glue; acrylic paint, brushes, Posca markers, glitter
For this Art & Comp project, I had to make a mixed media portrait using two traditional mediums and one non-traditional one. I decided I wanted my subject to be my cat, so I looked around the classroom for a non-traditional medium that was fluffy enough to replicate fur. I found a bunch of carpet swatches that were perfect for the application. I then designed a shape for the head and body using triangles out of a heptagon and cut a bunch of them out in different colors. After, I arranged them the correct shape and gave it the correct shading, then mounted it on cardboard. Finally, I painted the background green and made a rainbow zentangle background with Posca markers.
Wrinkled Hills
Wrinkled Hills
Materials: Phone camera, watercolor paper, pencil, ruler, lightboard, printer, glue, marker, paper cutter, scissors
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