Q1 Benchmark - Art 2

My artwork has an alien like person standing on a cloud reaching out to other clouds and a sunset like setting in the background. Through my art I hope to show how alienation is something that I face in my life with my culture. I feel isolated in a room full of mexican culture because I feel as if I don’t fit in. This brings me back to my personal life experiences and feeling as if I wasn’t part of the culture that makes me, me. As for the drawing portion of my work, I used a pencil to first draw an outline and then oil pastels to color in everything. This was a struggle because oil pastels are very messy and can easily ruin your drawing if not used correctly. Then i used a conte crayon in order to help the outlines have more definition in them so that there would be a separation between two things on the drawing. The sharp edges of the square crayon helps for a more subtle straight look to the finished product. Something that I learned while using the crayon was having to push the crayon slow but put pressure on the crayon at the same time so that if you draw a curve it looks neat. The artist that inspired my art was Frida Kahlo because although her painting were very sad and had bad/dark meanings to them, she still managed to put some love or good heart into the background story. For me, although I feel disconnected from my culture, I still have love for it and want to make my relationship with it stronger. Throughout my life going to family gatherings would be uncomfortable for me since the music, food and people felt distinct to me. I didn’t feel a warm welcome when I would be around my own family. In conclusion, one thing that I am most proud of in this work is the background story that it has because it’s very important to me. While one thing that I would change is the things that I decided to include in my drawing. I would change the clouds for planets and the background to the Mexican flag so that it would have a more clear meaning in my drawing and when I explain.