Personal Map 

Artist Statement

For this project, we mapped out lines of our path, whether it was simply just the places we go in a normal day, or lines mapping out our life journey. I decided to map out some of my favorite places I have traveled with my family to guide my design, using an online map to get accurate distances between the countries. My family and I have been traveling every year since I was little, beginning with Anamaria, when I was a baby, the Dominican Republic, Keys, Bahamas, Costa Rica, Charleston, and Aruba. 

For this project, I used different shades of green and blue gouache for the backdrop of my work. I knew I wanted to create a textured/layered look while following the tropical theme that each of these locations share, so I used green and yellow colored paper to create cut-out leaves, along with cut-out maps of the countries. I went over the lines of my map with black colored pencils to make them stand out better. 

In my artwork, I experimented with cutting and layering paper, which is a material I am not familiar with. It took a few tries to figure out the leaf designs that I wanted, and where to place and overlap them so it wouldn't look messy or cover the lines of my map too much. I also knew that I wanted to break the border with both the paint and the paper leaves, which is not something I usually incorporate into my artwork. I also experimented with using maps in my artwork. I found an old world atlas book and ripped out a page to cut into leaves to add more meaning and detail to my artwork.