the beauty within

I created this for the annual Scholastic Teen Art and Writing competition this year. I wanted to use art to express my feelings about the meaning of beauty. This is my artist's statement: 

"We live in a world where our perception of beauty has been distorted by TV, magazines, and the media. Every day we see advertisements for new ways to become “beautiful”. Reality has been glossed over by makeup, plastic surgery, and Photoshop – and our idea of beauty has become little more than an unreachable dream of looking as perfect as an actress modeling lipstick on a billboard. Every girl is dissatisfied and insecure with the way she looks. This is why I created this artwork – to show that true beauty is not the fake, skin-deep perfection that has ruined how we perceive ourselves. True beauty comes from within; it is the light inside our souls that forms our personalities, thoughts, words and deeds. I created this to force the viewer to rethink about how they judge beauty – whether by the outward appearance or by the light of the heart. I hope that as the world around us becomes increasingly deceived about the definition of beauty, we can remember that what makes a person truly beautiful is not what their face looks like, but what their soul looks like."

 I depicted two girls in my artwork: on that is considered to be beautiful by the world, and another one who would be considered less beautiful, or even ugly. I made a window in each of their chests looking inside to their "souls". The "beautiful" one has a shattered, darkened light bulb; the "ugly" one has a light bulb glowing with beautiful light. To me, true beauty comes from within - do not judge people by their outward appearances, because it's what is on the inside that makes a person truly beautiful. 

First, I made a sort of wooden "canvas" and made two holes for the windows. (My dad helped with this part :). After sketching out the figures, I made a collaged background using tempera paint, Elmer's glue (mixed with water) and various beauty ads torn from magazines. Then, I painted the figures using white tempera paint and drew over them with charcoal. I created their soul-window-boxes with cardboard and paint and used mirrors, light bulbs and wiring to create the interior of the boxes .

This was a way for me to express how I feel about beauty.

some more journal pages

Here is a charcoal drawing on top of my mixed media background I had created earlier.

The collaged background made an interesting texture when I drew over it with charcoal.

For this, I used fabric to create the ladies' dresses and pencil to outline the rest.

Practicing skin tones with acrylics, watercolors...

...and oils.

I love ferns :)

the Light of the World

art inspirations: cory godbey

Cory Godbey is one of my favorite artists. He uses mostly digitally manipulated pencil and watercolors. Here are some of my favorite artworks of his:

I get happy whenever I look at these beautiful pictures. Check out Cory's blog to see more: http://lightnightrains.blogspot.com/

the first snow

more art journal entries

For this journal entry, I tried to draw how I imagine my "inner motivator." This motivator is made up of all of the positive, happy feelings as I create art. I depicted these inner inspirations as an angel of golden light, her arms outstretched to share her happiness and confidence in my abilities. I used mixed media for this journal page and used newspaper clippings of uplifting words to show the positive feelings in my heart when I create.

On the opposite page, I painted a person to represent my "inner critic." This depicts those thoughts in the back of my head that criticize myself as I draw. The light from the Motivator is spreading across the page, blocking out the face of the critic. This represents my optimistic side striving to cover the negative thoughts I have when I criticize myself.
I really enjoyed creating this journal entry. It helped me to realize that when you focus on the positive, your weaknesses will eventually become your strengths.

This is a combination of acrylics and collage from a photo cut out of a National Geographic magazine. It was a photo of a child in an elaborate costume with a tear running down her face. It was very beautiful; I decided to center a journal page around it. I painted the face and the blossoms surrounding the child. For the rest, I used the photo in a collage.

I was having fun creating mixed media backgrounds for journal entries. This one includes lined paper, tissue paper, photocopies of an old page from a book, and some pressed daisies. I photographed the backgound with a pressed fern laid across the page.

a few portraits

Some Hunger Games portraits I did on commission last year...

More commissioned Harry Potter portraits from last year...

 Martin Luther King, Jr.

This year's self-portrait

More to come later! :)