VISual art Juniors Group B

An outer self-portrait—a watercolor piece, representing me, representing power and strength. The galaxy has a special meaning to me and it’s how I view my body. I believe that I am a vessel with a universe of ideas inside me waiting to be let out into the world. It also represents how I view my chocolate dark skin. Like most brown people, when our scars heal, they leave a mark, and Minnesota summer has many mosquitoes. As I kid, I didn’t know to not scratch, but now the scars have healed, some remain, and like a beautiful pattern of chaos, it reminds me of a galaxy.

Surrealism expresses my desire to showcase my fathoming worlds to Earth. As an outside self portrait, I wanted to portray that energy rather than the contrasting emotions that dwell within. The piece uses acrylics, while I wanted to use oils but my soul was lost underneath the pressed scrutiny and the magic draw of acrylics. The key elements within the painting are necklace, pixels, sun, and the line of 2 planets: Mercury and Venus. The necklace, I see as a crystal pendant, shows my love for crystals and spiritual amenities. The pixels distribute the feeling of a fleeting memory. A dream--or an unsettling clipped image broadcasted on your traditional screens in a single frame. I intended the viewer to make a solid conclusion that sun plus galaxy equals space. Thereforth when they see a small circular object, and a larger one--due to perspective-they could register them as planets; with a little research, they would realize that the first planet is Mercury and the second one closest to the humanoid is Venus. I intend to broadcast my zodiac sign--Libra--through Venus as representation of what society may see.

I created a self portrait based on a referenced picture of myself. I did not sketch it out beforehand and used acrylic paint, a medium I don't usually use. I painted out the base colors and shading that I wanted, then specified the shapes with a black paint pen. I used a picture of myself, but changed it to emphasize features that I think stick out on me, like my nose, and my eyes. I also painted on acne. It was a weird experience to see myself not looking head on. I know that is what I look like, but it's not how I see myself in my mind's eye. The “ME?” in the middle of it all is because I was weirded out to see my actual appearance. “The concept of self is hard” is also part of that.

I created an actual representation of how I think of myself for the outer self assignment. It took me a bit to think about ideas but then I just let them flow onto the paper. Of course I looked for a photo of myself on social media to get an idea down of what I want the drawing to look like.

This piece is my outer self portrait for the summer assignment. I wanted to make my skin look infrared so that it would really stand out from the hair. I colored the hair with a black marker, and I tried to make it look as chaotic as possible. I wanted my hair to look like there is static coming off of it. The piece as a whole has a chaotic feel to it, and that is fitting for my self portrait.

As part of the admissions process to get into an arts high school, I was told to create a piece of my inside self and how I want people to see me or how I myself see me.

I have many colors to my personality. I wanted to show that I am human and have my imperfections, but how beautiful they can be if you accept them as a part of who you are. This is represented by the colors used and my “Crown of Sorrows” as I like to call it.

I am still growing as a person and have a lot of life to experience, so I tend to look to the light and follow my own path of positivity and a love for life.

I created two pieces for my summer assignment one of which is my inner self portrait. This picture comes from the more manic and chaotic side of me which many people don't get to experience. I started with just a basic drawing of a girl with a silly facial expression, then I picked out 5 random colors from my bag of markers, I drew this in my color changing lights so that i couldn't see what colors i picked and just started drawing.

I created this piece using a cigar box, acrylic paint and paint samples. For my first self portrait, my outward self, I used a lot of primary colors in my skin tone. It follows a theme in my previous art of clown-like expressions and color schemes. I thought working with the cigar box would work well with the concept of an external and internal portrait. With a box, not everything is apparent at first, the contents of a box can be a mystery. The geometric bird symbol on the inside of the box is a symbol I became very comfortable drawing over the summer, I would paint it everywhere and I feel like it represents myself and my friends. The paint samples behind the bird are colors that I frequently use in my art.

I created my self portrait with the intent of showing how I see myself with all of my features pointed out and exaggerating them. My process was simple I sketched it then outlined what needed to be and then I went in with color.

To create this project, I wanted a clean and not so sketchy look which digital art would achieve. I knew this project had to be a self portrait, and at first I thought it had to be a bust shot, which is the traditional form. I researched other forms of portraits, especially the Renaissance style. I worked on finding a concept. I wanted to base it off the Renaissance. This is one reason why the person looks like a knight. Like a knight, I can come off as cocky and confident. Also, like a knight, I am a protector of my loved ones and put their needs before my own. I would fight for them until the end, making sure to take care of their wounds before mine. This is why the knight’s stance is supposed to come off as very protective and confident, while still having a soft expression to prevent her from looking aggressive or cold. For the background, I referenced tarot card designs which seemed to have backgrounds that framed and brought focus to whomever was in the center of the piece. To fully portray this, I drew two trees to border and frame the person, while having a path stretch out in the background. I did a simple lined border with a classic tarot card title at the bottom. For the background itself, I wanted it to come off as mystical and mysterious, which I believed the night sky helped .

I created this piece to show how I perceive myself on the outside. It’s supposed to be pretty simple, I have gauged ears and a septum ring. My hair is finally growing out the rest of the black dye and that I usually try to be put on a smile in front of people.

I created these portraits to represent my own self image of my inward personality and perspective. When this assignment was assigned to me, I was spending time in an inpatient hospital due to a recent diagnosis of bipolar 1 disorder. I was doing a lot of self-reflection and observation of my outwards and inner self. In the hospital, the only art supply available was crayons and I did a lot of experimentation with crayon usage. I studied myself in the mirror and created an outwards self portrait which reflected my own perspective of myself.

I made this as a reflection of what I imagine my inner self to be. I believe people are built from their memories, and I tried to display that in an ethereal way, since the idea of an inner self is uncertain. I wanted to show the parts of me that define who I am, and so I made the main subject a sort of otherworldly rabbit. The pictured memories show a lot about who I am and what I’m like. I took inspiration from Chakras, and tried to represent them in the rabbit, linking each Chakra to a memory through color.

I created a piece of art that reflects how I believe others see me. I want people to be able to get to know me through my art and sorta get to see who I am before they really try to become my friend. In my process to make this I asked my friends in my home town how they saw me when we first met and what they thought of me.

I created this piece to represent my inner self and I wanted it to contrast with my outer self portrait. I created a more realistic base for my artwork and then added an illustrative top layer with paint pens. This contrasted between the watercolor layer and the top layer. I also wanted to convey that I have lots of thoughts bouncing around in my head. Some are random, some are intrusive, and then there's just plain weird ones.

This portrait, if one can even call it that, was a bit harder. I had contemplated leaving it blank. I see myself as a very neutral person, and don’t find myself passionate about many things. However, leaving it blank would just be disappointing to both myself and the people who would see it. I had remembered a bit of an English assignment I made last year, about writing vignettes that related to my life. I based the theme on flowers and plants within a garden. I drew a miniature garden. I am a small person, almost like a child. This tiny body of mine is almost minuscule to everything else in the world, yet when it comes to my own intricate creations, it feels as if there’s an archive in my mind. In this tiny human body of mine, I want the giant world around us to watch me. I may be small and almost insignificant, but I know the garden will surely bloom brilliantly.