Editorial Cartoon

Reflection

What Have I Done? is an editorial cartoon about the environment. It is focused on our failure to act, and the destruction that we have caused. The eye is shown behind bars because of the feeling that whenever truth is presented about the climate, people are quick to dismiss it, or ignore it. Even those who feel that they care, like myself, often don't do anything to actually act upon their interactions. This hypocracy is an issue and most likely will not stop anytime soon. And it is a big part of why we are failing the environment. In words that are inside the eye is a portion of Greta Thunbergs speech: "How Dare You?" in 2019. She says "if you choose to fail us, I say, we will never forgive you." I agree with this statement. As the youth, we are starting to see the destruction that is happening. As often we are shut down for it. In 2018 alone, there were over 200 mirders of climate activists. This clearly shows that this is a larger issue of metaphorical blindness, were people do not see what is right in front of them, and will even go out of their way to silence those telling the truth. The poem on the outside of the piecethat loops inwards is written by me. It says that those who can see the truth are not crazy. It says that it is right to feel desperate, and depressed because when you see what is happening that is naturally one of the stages of the grieving process. And the grieving process does apply to the environment, because it is the loss of our home, and of our humanity.

The materials I used was illustrator board, pastel paper, and a black felt tipped marker. Pastel paper was defiantly not the right paper to you, but at the moment I was creating it, it was all that I had that was black. The glue showed up a lot more than I wanted it to, so I will experiment to find a way for that not to happen.

My process for this specific piece was not that long, however the project as a whole took me about 3.5 weeks. This is because I had so many ideas, but I didn't know how to make them a reality. I started multiple different pieces, some about Trans rights, LGBTQ2+ rights, the environment etc, but I couldn't find one that was working. However, once I got this idea for an eye then I realized that I could use the design part of this class more than the drawing part. After that it just started to come together, with cutting out the pieces for the eye, then the black and white backgrounds, and finally I added the bars and the outer writing. In the end, I also wrote a poem accompanying the piece, but it didn't make it onto the piece.