Aliya's Art Project

Artist Statement

For the quarter 1 project, we had to draw a self portrait of anyone and have it convey an important message to you.   I drew a picture of me back when I was on treatment for Leukemia.  This picture is of me getting chemotherapy but instead of chemo, I drew in all the emotions and things I was feeling during my experience.  During treatment I felt a lot of different things.  My emotions were all over.  I was sad a lot of the time, sometimes happy, tired, grateful, I tried to convey this in the picture.  

The picture is me bald.  I have a port in my chest which I used when I got chemo.  There is a bag of chemo going through me.  I specifically made the chemo in the backround yellow because that was the color of one of the chemos that made me feel most sick.  My goal was to make my skin color look on more of the pale side being I was sick.  I drew makeup on myself because it was one of the things I got into when I was sick to help me feel more pretty.  The things I drew in my chemo bag were the emotions I was feeling.  

I drew the litle explosion spark to express me going crazy.  I drew the skull to represent feeling so “dead” and out of it.  I drew the heart because I was grateful for the expirience and meeting the people I met.  It shaped me into the person I am today. I drew the “zzz” to represent how tired I was physically and emotionally.  I drew the first pump to represent me as a fighter.  The shot and pill bottle was to represent treatment.  The upside down over represents me being over with it.   The happy and sad face represented my moods changing often about things.  And lastly the survivor ribbon represents me being a survivor.  

The tools I used to make this picture was a pencil and colored pencils.  I chose colored pencils because I wanted the final product to have a light easy to look at appeal, not too many bright colors to distract from the point of the drawing.  

My current works relates to my previous work because of the style and materials I used.  Colored pencils is a material I usually use and this is a style of drawing I have done before when it comes to drawing people.   Something I might use next time is oil pastel because I have not used them in a while and it would be nice to try again.  

These are the steps I took for creating this piece.  I brainstormed some different ways to convey the message.   I looked up some up pictures of myself to base my drawing off.   looked at each picture and drew what I saw (I looked at pictures of chemo bags, ports, shots, etc.)  After that I got colored pencils and colored in the picture.  I got it critiqued from Ms Hertz and fixed the background which was her one piece of advice.  

I had a picture inspire me for my work.  I saw a beautiful picture of a girl who was bald which inspired the style I drew my picture in.  I tried to get all the details on her face but make them look similar to mine.  https://www.google.com/search?rlz=1CADEAA_enUS761US761&biw=1366&bih=702&tbm=isch&sa=1&q=bald+girls+tumblrwith+makeup&oq=bald+girls+tumblrwith+makeup&gs_l=psy-ab.3...13707.14542.0.14627.6.6.0.0.0.0.123.529.1j4.5.0....0...1.1.64.psy-ab..2.1.121...0i13i30k1.0.yXmEWb2EUEM#imgrc=vzlmV8eeRh9Z7M: (link to the picture).

A certain technique to the picture that is important is the light pencil marks.  I tried to make it light and simple to not take away from the message of the drawing.  Personally when I was making this I did not learn a lot of new techniques.  Art is something I have done a lot before so this was nothing new to me.  

The thing I am most proud of in this piece is the girl I drew representing me.  I think I drew her well with good detail to tell what it is.  Also proud of the things I drew to represent my emotions during treatment.  

Personally I don’t think there is anything I would change about the project.  If I did it again I would maybe try a different material to try something new, but I really like how it turned out.  Something I would try next time is new materials and to do someone other than myself.  

Something I learned from this is how to convey a message through a self portrait.  I have drawn a self portrait before but never tried to convey a message through it.  I got to explore different ways to show a message by looking at the examples and doing some brainstorming.