Stars and Stripes

Artist Statement

For this project, we were instructed to create artwork that incorporated red, white, and blue, as well as stripes and stars as our main composition, elements that are evident on our American flag. We were given the option to create something with a specific meaning behind it, something that represents an aspect of our country that we support and honor, or something that we protest. It could also be a simple design or drawing that had no meaning, but still included all of the requirements. In my artwork, I knew I wanted to touch on an ongoing current event that I am passionate about. The white picket fence is an iconic image of the American dream, something that many immigrants come to our country in search of. I wanted to contrast that with a chain link fence and the barbed wire to represent detention centers at the borders, where families are being split up and locked away, prevented from reaching their American dream. I purposefully made a controversial piece to express my opinion and ideas, and to make viewers think. I believe it can be interpreted in many different ways. 

In this project, we were allowed to use any media of our choice, such as photoshop, collaging, drawing, or painting. I began this project by sketching out my design lightly with a 2B pencil on watercolor paper. I had originally wanted to use a material I was not as used to, like colored pencils or markers, but the smaller details in my artwork required precision and a light color palette to emphasize the darks. I decided to choose light blue and red watercolors colors, and a darker blue, black and red sharpie for any fine shapes and lines that would stand out against the lighter background colors. 

One process I experimented with in my artwork was adding text. I felt that it was not only an extra element to help observers better understand the point I am trying to make, but was also an opportunity to add another subtle but prominent message, as seen in the upside-down question marks to represent the Mexican borders. Adding text also helped me come up with the idea to add broken and sharp chain link fencing around the words to really help emphasize and draw attention to the message. I also experimented with a new material I have not yet used before, which was colored sharpie. I really feel like it helped make my artwork look clean, and more detailed and gave it almost a cartoon appearance. Finally, learning how to repeat precise repetitive patterns, as seen in the diamond shapes of the chain link fence, was a long and tedious process, and I found myself erasing and restarting often. Eventually, I found that I did not need to draw each diamond individually, but could instead create zig-zagging patterns column by column, which took much less time, came out cleaner, and gave the piece a sense of balance and unity through the matching shapes. Looking back to the beginning stages of this project, I was frustrated because it was not coming out the way I had planned. However, after adding color, I realized how much it can truly transform your artwork.