Final Portrait Project Submission

Artist Statement

Jy’Aire O’Connor

For this quarter of Art we made a small self portrait the represents us either metaphorically, head on, or distinctly. My art was somewhat of a metaphor not mentioning or showing anything about me in it’s entirety. My self portrait  included one of kanye's album mascots Dropout Bear, a squid, a rainbow fish, a treasure chest, Rick (From Rick and Morty) as the sun, and outer space. For this creation I used Oil pastels, a pencil, color pencils, pen, sharpie, and crayons. I wanted my Self Portrait to be somewhat dry and not too shiny this is why I chose these tools . My portrait consist of many colors because I wanted it to be vibrant.

This portrait represents my life and my future choices. In my creation the sky and the ocean kind of collide because my thoughts on both are conflicting. I can’t choose between studying astronomy or marine biology when I get to college. For the Kanye West Dropout Bear I chose him because the character itself is ironic. It’s called Dropout Bear yet he graduated high school and earned his Bachelor's degree. Although I joke about dropping out or feel as though I want to I always persevere and pull through when times get hard. Rick being the sun shows how much the show and science influences me. The squid, fish, and treasure chest kind of point out my love for marine life and the perks that come from studying them.

I Am more of a visual learner so while drawing I pulled up images of the things you see in my self portrait and drew them. While doing the outlines of the object I made sure to make it poke out which is why I used the sharpie. I then had to rearrange the initial positioning of the objects to create as little space there was. When done with that I colored in the self portrait giving the objects distinct colors making sure no object mimicked the other. I smudged the oil pastel to fill in any missing spots. An artist that inspired me is Vincent van Gogh. His art is very abstract and he’s known for using oil tools to paint. One of my favorite pieces of art from him is “The Starry Night”.

If I could change one thing it’d be to add more patterns in my art like Vincent van Gogh. Just like swirls or zig zags. I hope to get better with oil tools and get close to his way of art.

All in all I feel as though this project went really well. I learned a lot while doing this such as the different type of utensils as well as multiple ways you can use them. I also learned that I have a little bit of artist in me. I was actually proud of my art it looked great! I also learned that something so basic could come out so complicated or be considered abstract art when lots of time is put in.  I hope to use my experience now for projects later on in the future. I can’t wait to do more projects close or similar to this one and see the improvements.