FHS Diploma

Artist Statement: 

For this project, we began with an FHS diploma and were tasked with creating a representation of our high school experience, encompassing both the highs and lows. In my artwork, I aimed to capture the negative and positive aspects of high school. On one side, I rendered a self-portrait to convey the immense stress induced by school, characterized by the weight of endless assignments, exams, and the influence of social media. The darkness that I shaded in the background gradually gives way to a brighter and lighter depiction on the left side of the page. Here, I illustrated a scene from a photograph featuring me and my friends in Charleston, South Carolina. This part of the artwork serves to highlight the moments of joy and positivity in my life, creating a stark contrast with the negative aspects of high school that I depicted on the other side.

For this project, I began by painting the diploma with white acrylic paint so I would have a blank canvas. used pencil to add shading, green, blue, yellow, black, and brown gouache to add color, and colored pencils to bring out smaller details. 

During the creation of this artwork, I underwent several key processes. Firstly, I drew inspiration from my photographs, using them as references for the elements I wanted to include in my piece. Additionally, I faced the challenge of rendering human figures and facial features, which I am not familiar with. This led me to multiple revisions and adjustments. Another significant aspect of this project was my exploration of shading techniques. Shading was not a technique I typically worked with in my previous work.