S.I. #7

This is Alexandria Reece. She is an outstanding musician, singer, and actress who works harder than anyone I've ever met. She's dressed in royal blue because she is nothing less than a queen and the dark cool tone against the warm, vibrant colors of her skin makes the portrait seem more powerful. The sound wave passing behind her of course represents her musical lifestyle. Though we grew up in the same county when we were young I didn't meet Alex until 3 years ago on New Year's Eve when I was visiting for the holidays. I loved her immediately for her sweet, confident, spunky behavior and we have kept in touch through social media ever since. She graduated a semester early from high school, packed her things, and flew out to LA where she will be going to college and getting herself out there into the spotlight.

This portrait was made using Bristol board, Prismacolor markers, a fine point black Sharpie, Uni white gel pen, and tracing paper. Using the tracing paper allowed me to transfer an outline from my computer screen onto a piece of paper quickly and accurately. The Prismacolors are highly pigmented oil-based markers that allow vibrant ink to spread easily and the oil base allows the ink colors to blend together, eliminating mark lines and awkward color layering. The Sharpie was used to add fine details such as the hair wisps escaping and her necklace and also the soundwave in the background. White gel pens bring out the brightest highlights like on the tip of her nose and her teeth and enhance details like the separation between her eyelashes and the chain links. When using this much ink I go straight to bristol board because it is a heavy paper that the ink won't bleed through and it has a silky smooth texture, perfect for application.

A reference photo that Alex sent to me was traced off of my laptop onto tracing paper, then transferred onto the bristol board by laying graphite down on the back and pressing the lines down onto the paper using a hard tool. This time, I decided to use a fine tip Sharpie pen to trace the lines because if I had to go back and add more lines in after lifting the tracing paper, it'll be much easier to see what I have or have not traced already. I plan to do a trilogy of the same photograph using new materials and styles for each one just to shake up my art habits and see how different each portrait can look even when based on the same photo. The melting pattern and warm, vibrant colors of the face are meant to visually represent what music sounds like. The soft shapes that look as though they're all pooling together create the movement that music has and the colors convey different sounds, genres, melodies, etc. of music. Thin, wispy lines created with the fine point pen convey the soft, delicate texture of her hair and eyelashes. As this project evolved, I changed the plan to have the colors and shapes continuing throughout the background to the soundwave because the simplicity of the background further makes her stand out and represents that the talent and passion are coming from within Alex. Moving forward with this project, I would consider adding in a strong border to solidify the portrait rather than leaving her floating in white space.