S.I. #10

I of course had to do a portrait of the woman responsible for my existence, my beautiful and strong mom. My room is directly above my mom's desk where she's been working from home so our windows look out to the same yard. One day there were a bunch of blue jays everywhere so while I was doing school work I spotted them out the window and texted my mom to look! because I know she gets very excited about birds and their behaviors and the many different species. This moment sparked my inspiration for this project because I know my mom would love to be one with the birds.

I planned to use oil pastels to create a vibrant, detailed work but only got as far as using graphite and sketch paper.

I began by searching for a photo of a blue jay head-on to use as a reference, then practiced drawing it. I then found multiple of my own photos of my mom, then experimented with her facial expression and structure next to the jay. I sketched out my final design on a piece of toned pastel paper with the intention of leaving a blank background. I experimented with her expression for a while because I wanted to convey the silent excitement you'd be able to see on my mom's face had she really been that close to a bird. My use of space is intentional because I wanted there to be almost awkward anticipation of seeing two creatures side by side with nothing else around them and just the right amount of space between them.