My Artistic Style
I have been painting, drawing, or living creatively since I was a little girl. At age 5, my neighborhood street and driveways were filled with chalk cities. At age 8, my neighbors all had custom painted nails as I grew my nail painting franchise. At age 12, I started and led the famous art camp, Camp Pizzazz, to teach my neighbors’ children cool art projects out of my basement. While I just proved that my neighborhood was incredibly accepting and encouraging of my creativity, I don’t think I developed an artistic style until 9th grade.
In 9th grade I had an amazing Foundations of Art teacher, Mr. Z. In most foundations classes, the work and exercises you do can get a litttttttle boring. But Mr. Z made it fun and challenging at the same time. During one activity on perspective, Mr. Z noticed that my bushes had a ‘sketchy’ look to them and praised me for it. It was then that I realized I could make ‘sketchy’ my style!
The summers after 9th and 10th grade were very influential in my artistic confidence. I attended SCAD summer camps those summers and was encouraged to keep my ‘messy, sketchy’ look. I was also introduced to graphic design. I created my first poster the summer after 10th grade:
After my graphic class at SCAD, I fell in love with design and order. Everything I started to create was very neat and orderly. One of my art teachers even suggested I create wallpaper. Well one thing led to another and over Christmas Break in 11th grade, I painted an entire dining room. It was probably the most tedious project I have completed so far in my artistic career. I’m still so thankful and surprised that the family trusted a high school student to paint their dining room… but hey, I crushed it!
After creating a custom wall design, I grew tired of order and needed some mess in my life. During my senior year of high school, I started a study on dogs. (Check out my animal portrait portfolio). When capturing a dog’s personality, I thought messy was definitely the way to go! And for high school, it was. I needed that fluidity and excitement in my art.
Now, in college, my style is a balance between messy and order. Some graphics have taken on a sketchy look and vice versa, some paintings are strict and graphic.
When thinking about balance, I believe it’s not only in my artistic style but also in my lifestyle. I have struggled and been challenged when my personal scale has dipped one direction a little to far, but learning the hard way and finding balance in life brings me joy. :)
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