(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!

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. 

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!

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.

Ngopa was displayed in its non-colored form at the 2024 Teen Arts festival hosted at CCM.

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, not thinking there was a way to do so while preserving the lines. 

For my very last independent project, I decided to finally color it. It always felt wrong and unfinished the way it was, and I had been thinking to do it with watercolor. Since I only had 10 days to do a project due to collaborations, I thought completing an incomplete project would be ideal, and Ngopa came to mind. I used the original online colored image as my reference and painted the piece with watercolor, going along the previously drawn lines. I added many variations in color, since the original was very simple, but I kept the main base colors. The piece was done on the final day, Friday, and I sprayed it with sealant to finish it off. 

I'm so happy with this being my final project, going full circle from the beginning of Design to the end. I've evolved so much as an artist over 3 years and this is a way for me to show that. I do wish I found a way to include more color where it didn't necessarily belong, but as I get better I will gain more of those skills. I still used new techniques that i've learned.

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. 

This project was very rushed, and so it didn't come out as good as I wanted it. I think it was still good in some ways, with the proper measurements and shape... just not enough detail.