Sustained Investigation #12

Artist's Statement:

Jillian Wight

Medsker

AP Art and Design 

6 March 2023

When I was younger, I had a favorite childhood book called "I dreamed I was a ballerina.'' It was written by Anna Pavlova, and illustrated by Edgar Degas.  The way Degas ballerinas (and the book as a whole) called upon young girls' dreams of an illustrious life captured me, and I wanted my piece to reflect this.  I drew a young girl in a princess dress, mimicking the posing of Degas' ballerinas.  My goal was to experiment with a new style, push my attention to form, and focus on the theme of girlhood dreams for life.

I use chalk pastels to create this work, a material I haven't played with much before.  I wanted the softness of the pastels to blend well and mimic the hazy, soft quality of a memory, therefore making the image seem more personal to my audience.  I'm pretty happy with the result, but I found it hard to pull dark darks and light lights and get the same depth of color that I would with oil pastels.

This piece was out of my comfort zone for a number of reasons.  It gave me the opportunity to practice manipulating a new material, using a new perspective, a new style, etc.  I struggled a lot with the dress because I wasn't working with a reference and was unsure of how the folds would look.  I looked at a few different images and did my best, and I'm happy with the result, though I think it could use some fine-tuning.  I also want to revisit this piece and add a light source and some dramatic shading.

. . .