Artist's Statement:

Jillian Wight

Medsker

2D Design

14 October 2020

In this design, the idea of the American dream is portrayed. I conveyed this by illustrating a woman sleeping, and made it clear that she was dreaming about our country. I considered adding extra elements to the piece, perhaps inside the thought bubble, that would demonstrate the falsity of the American dream, but decided to leave the piece more up to interpretation. I am glad I did so, because I think it makes it valuable to a wider range of audiences. I also wanted to illustrate tension, and did so in the placement of my lines and shapes as well as the style of the piece and the exaggerated definition around the border of the flag. Finally, I wanted to emphasize the person who’s dream it was. I decided to illustrate a woman, in order to emphasize that the American dream is defined by the dreamer themselves and may be different for everyone. The project relates to me personally because there are many issues in our country right now that I am very passionate about. We are living in a very controversial time period and political climate, and I wanted to address this with an element of irony by portraying our country in an almost peaceful manner. However, I hope that as the viewer thinks deeper, they will read into certain small details, such as the fact that the dreamer is sleeping, and therefore ignorant of reality. Overall, I really wanted this piece to make the viewer think. I wanted the drawing itself to be simple, but its value complex. I think this was successful, and I’m really happy! I also tried my best to ensure that the piece reflected my personal style and agenda.

I didn’t use very many materials to create this piece, because I wanted to focus more on the complexity of the subject and execution rather than the construction. To start, I used white multi-media paper that is 9” by 12”. I then used a very soft graphite pencil to sketch my design, and I referred often to previous drawings I did in order to create a face I was really happy with. Once I had sketched the basic shapes and layout adequately, I used a felt tip black pen to outline the lines on the face. I then went in and filled these sections in with color, using dual brush markers. I then moved on to the flag and thought bubble. To illustrate the bubble, I used the felt tip pen to roughly outline a circle, and then followed this outline a number of times to thicken the effect. I did the same two more times, and then used the same technique around the edges of the cloud-like shape. To fill in the lines, I used the thicker end of a black dual brush marker. I then used the black felt tip pen to outline the flag’s stripes and stars, and then used a red sharpie to fill in the stripes as evenly as possible. I then filled in the area around the stars using the markers I’d used on the face. One this was completed, I finished by drawing many thin, wavy lines to illustrate hair. I alternated between using dual brush markers and the black felt tip pen. Finally, I went in with an eraser and removed the leftover pencil lines. I’m really happy with how these materials came together!

I used a number of processes to create the final design, and I played around a lot. This piece is actually my third final draft, and the result of a lot of experimenting. I started by creating much rougher lines and focusing less on crispness and detail. I layered lines instead of neatly placing them inside one another, and simply added some red and blue over the black lines that were already present. While this looked fine I decided that a more put together, clean feeling would bring more to the illustration. I not only played with layering and constructing the face, but I also tried a few different processes with the hair. I tried layering lines of varying thicknesses over one another, but finally decided that a more abstract type curl would be best. My technique when it came to the flag remained the same for the most part, however, I did decide to go with an ombre in order to tie the shades of blue in the face to the top of the page. This took some adjusting, but after layering lots of colors and doing a lot of blending, the outcome was very successful! Not only did my color choices in the hair, flag, and face create balance and unity throughout the piece, but the detail in both the top and the bottom created subtle repetition and pattern in the hair. This created movement in the piece, and the streaks of color made it easy for the viewers' eyes to move around the page. In general, my project evolved from a very lack-luster, basic, dull representation of my idea to a more whimsical, beautiful, and ironic version that I can say I’m proud of. I think my next steps should be playing around a bit more with the idea of “design,” and trying to experiment with materials other than marker and pen. I need to overcome my fear of paint!

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