My self portrait actually doesn’t have myself in it. I drew an actor known as Chadwick Boseman. This picture shows, just his face with parts of it altered. His left eye is blue, the right eye is yellow, a section in the Nigerian flag and he has two red slashes. I wanted this art piece to communicate my culture and myself. The alterations done on his face reflects me. The nigerian flag means that I’m nigerian, the blue eyes are for being smart, yellow for successful future, and the two dashes because I do martial arts. And I choose to do Chadwick Boseman because he does a lot of films that remind me about my culture. I did not use much to create my artwork. I used, a mechanical pencil, color pencils, and one charcoal stick. When using these materials, I had to go a bit above and beyond when coloring or making a definite line because I didn’t want the colors to fade just in case they clash into each other. I would like to relate this back to the sketch that I did in my sketch book prior to my final sketch. I feel like the sketch in my book was a lot more accurate in capturing the likeness  or Chadwick Boseman, as the one I drew now, looks noticeably different. The way I created my work was simple. First I just drew Chadwick Boseman’s face on the paper with mechanical pencil and outlined where I would fill in the different marks with color pencil. Second, I colored in his face from his black hair/beard/eyebrows, to the nigerian flag, to his brown skin (I layered with 3 types of brown), and his eyes with the colors I intended. I lastly outlined the outside of his face with charcoal. The artist that I take personal inspiration from is named Lionel Smit. He’s an African artist that became an artist because it came naturally to him.

I used the hashing method to make the beard/hair/eyebrows which is important to the realisticness to the picture. I didn’t really use a new techniques, except for the fact that I doubled down on coloring. I am most proud of the fact that I was able to draw Chadwick Boseman so realistically because I don’t prefer to draw real life of anything. I would change the size of what I draw on, but I learned how to draw more realistically more than I usually do, which I guess cancels out the complaint.

Sources Cited

Frank, Priscilla. “10 Contemporary African Artists You Don't Know But Should.” The Huffington Post, TheHuffingtonPost.com, 20 Oct. 2015, <www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/contemporary-african-artists_us_56255056e4b02f6a900d59a6.>

My self-portrait communicates my identities. One side of my self-portrait communicates the American side of me. America is where I was born and raised. The other side of my self-portrait communicates my African side. I am a proud full Fulani and Sierra Leonean. The theme of the portrait was cultural identity. To portray my cultural identity I drew myself in the center of the page with certain items that identity with me.

The drawing of my portrait consists of an outline of my upper body, my face and hijab. The materials I used to outline my body is a pencil. I used the pencil to draw lines in my hijab to give it a realistic look, representing the folds in it. After that, I went over the outline with a fine point black pen to give it boldness. Next, I went on to the color the inside of my hijab. I colored the top of  my hijab with the colors of the Sierra Leone flag, green,white, and blue. The sides of my hijab has the American flag colors (red and white stripes with the blue part with the stars) from the top to the bottom of the hijab. The materials I  used for color, are colored pencils. When using the color pencils, a technique I learned is using the lightness of pencil to create shading. I also learned how to use the pen to make lines in my hijab to show flowness in it. The thing I’m most proud of is the process I went through.

Through this process of learning the shading technique a failure I encountered was using the shading and coloring inside the hijab, the wrapping part of on my face. I wanted the shading and coloring on the hijab to look my flowy, realistic appeal when I colored the Sierra Leone flag on top of my head and the American flag around sides of the hijab. The lines I drew came out too strong. However, learning from that mistake the bottom end of my hijab had the flowy,realistic look to it.

When you look at my picture you will see that I chose not to draw features on my face. Instead, I drew what identifies me on the sides of . One side I drew all of the Africans things I like. I drew my favorite  traditional African pot where they make an African dish called fufu. Using a brown coloring pencil and drew the little tribal prints that are usually engraved into them. Next I drew an African woman with a pot on her head. I drew this, because when I visited Africa during the summer that's what the norm of traveling their goods to sell to then come home to feed their family. I also, drew things like a beach and palm trees. When I first landed in Sierra Leone the first thing I noticed were the swaying ;palm trees exiting out the airport. Later, driving around I saw the big beautiful beaches there. On the right side of my picture I drew all the things I love in America. I drew a chipotle burrito because I love chipotle, a photo frame to represent my family, a pizza box to represent a food I  eat here in America, my house to represent where I grew up atand school to represent my education and learning. All the materials I used for that was coloring pencils and a black fine point pen to bold it around the outlines of each mini drawing.

If I could, somethings I would change are, to balance out the colors of the Sierra Leone and American flag on my hijab. I would change this because the American flag takes up more of my hijab, I wanted a balance of it. I would change the blank white background of my portrait, I could have colored it to make everything on page more bold. Overall, my portrait represented my culture, my nationality, and religion. To get to what I wanted to portray I asked myself, “Who am I? It portrayed throw my picture.

In my art work I drew a self portrait of myself. I love to work out so in the middle of the portrait I drew myself with a nice lean body. I am not colored in because people are not really sure what ethnicity I am,  so I left mine colorless. If you look into my eyes they are faded and this is because I’m blind in seeing my competition. If the odds are against me I don’t care because I have faith in my ability. I have waves for a hairstyle and they are deep and all over the place so that's how I drew them in the picture. I have myself thinking about a soccer ball, because soccer is my passion. In the top left corner above my head I drew a soccer net and the 18 yard box because I am a striker who scores the goals. In the low half on the right side next to me I drew UFC fight gloves. This is because I love to watch the UFC which is mixed martial arts and I also do  martial arts myself. Pretty much perpendicular on the left side I drew wrestling shoes because I love to wrestle and am good at it. Above the UFC gloves is a drawing of a spine and pelvis. I drew this because I want to be a chiropractor when I grow up. I love people's reactions when I give them an adjustment. In the background I have the U.S. flag fading away because I use to be a patriot and wanted to be a Navy SEAL. I loved this country but stopped and feel like the U.S has been falling apart since Trump became president. Racist are more open to come out and we are going to war with ourselves again after we have been doing good.

For this project I used pencils,color pencils, markers, shading pencils,and a thin pen. I started off thinking about what I love and what I want my drawing to mean. I used all these items before except for the shading that was new for me.  A certain technique is to have something to look at and go from there. A new technique is to  draw shapes when drawing things to make a finished product. I am most proud of the finished product of my work. It is exactly what I thought it would look like and I can say that's a first for me. Usually I imagine something and it's nothing like what I thought it would turn out to be. If I could change anything it would be more detail in the flag. I feel like I could have done better with that. In conclusion I did this is a good project in my opinion. I learned that art is not as hard as I thought. It is about being consistent and caring about what it looks like.

This image is base on the memory of my childhood. It gives a clear picture of what kind of place I lived in, what I liked, and what I did in that time. It also tells about the kind of life I was born in. I am from people who have and do farms, and own livestock like cows, goats, camels, etc. I lived in a countryside or you can also call it a village. The life at that time was beautiful to me I just loved that kind of life, going to place where there are farms, rabbits, birds, mountains, different wild animals like fox, and dears, it was so amazing and above all the climate with its beautiful shiny sun. It is hard to explain it but that was when I was between the ages of five to nine.

I started this project  with a pencil I drew the whole thing you see there and then after I completed my work with a pencil I used three different pencil colors yellow and orange for the sun, green for the tree, and corn plant black for the mountain.

Creating this art was a carefully planned process. I was provided with a measured piece of paper. First I had to think about the best thing that I can draw that would briefly explain and define my culture and my childhood. Then I came up with the idea of the mountains, farms, trees, and birds I used to see. I found these things special to me, then started with the tree on it is a bird, and imagined myself sitting under the tree and things I could see in front of me like mountain, farms, and above the sun. I drew everything on the piece of the paper and then started to think about their color and others. I colored using pencil colors.

Important things in this art is that it tells my culture and childhood in that environment in a unique way. And one thing I have learned in the process is that I experienced that I can say everything about how my childhood was based on the piace of the art that I have done and it allows me to do that freely. I am proud of this art because it helps me refresh my memory of my past times.

I would say that if I can change anything in my art is that the colors, or the shapes of the tree, or the shape, side and placement of the mountain a little but not big change.

I learned that art is fun that allows me to communicate my ideas in a way that can be understood by all people of different languages, cultures, and backgrounds.

My artwork is composed of an eye, a nose, and an eyebrow representing a quarter of a face. I chose this because it explains who I am. I am a very visual person. Everything I do is about the visual experience whether it’s learning or having fun. I don’t think there would be any other way to represent this besides an eye. To create this I used a pencil, white-out pen, brown and black color pencils, and a thin sharpie. I used the pencil to sketch everything out. I used the brown and black colored pencils to start coloring and shade. I used the white-out pen for the eyes once I got to that part. The thin sharpie was used last to make the eyebrows, eyelashes, and the pupil of the eye.

I think Ellen Cooper makes similar work to what I made. It’s a portrait that is not too realistic but not too unrealistic. To get this style I think shading was the most important step. Your level of shading makes drawings more realistic. During this drawing I learned how draw eyebrows using single lines. If I could change something I would just make everything closer to the edge. Hopefully I can go back and revise my project in the future.

For my quarter 1 project for art, I did the portrait project. For my project, I have created a portrait of Pablo Picasso young mistress, Marie-Thérèse Walter. This artwork shows reflections of self. How we see ourselves versus how others see us. The reflection on the left represents how Pablo Picasso viewed his mistress as beautiful. The reflection on the right represents how she views herself as old and ugly.  I want the art to communicate as for how most people see themselves versus what they see when they look in the mirror. The materials I used when making this art was pencil, fine point sharpie, and color pencils. I used a pencil to draw my art and used a fine point sharpie to trace over my drawing. I used the color pencil to color my artwork. My current work relates to my previous work because I have used similar materials to complete my previous artwork. The first thing I did when making this artwork was I first drew my art in my sketchbook then traced onto a piece of paper. After that, I traced my drawing with a sharpie, then started coloring it. An artist who inspired me to make this artwork was Pablo Picasso. A certain technique that's important to the work is using darker colors for the reflection part of the art so it can have different meanings. A new technique I experimented more in the process of making this work was coloring. I really wouldn't change anything about my project because I like how everything turned out. In conclusion, something I learned through the completion of this project is don't rush take your time.

My art piece is “me” showing who I am. I’ve drawn features of me, so cinque eyes, with a small button nose, thin eyebrows, and wavy hair. I liked how people would paint their flag on one side of their face around their cultures festivals. But I also wanted to add another part of me. So the left half of my face is the Puerto Rico flag, because my ethnicity is Puerto Rican. On the other side I have drawn the LGBTQ+ flag. I am a homosexual, and proud. Most people are scared to come out to family and to the world because of the discrimination they will receive. I am not, if i'm being honest telling my mother was the hardest because I feared what everyone else was fearing. But i’ve never been scared of what others think. These two flags  are important to me. I’m proud of them because they represent who I am. I want to communicate the pride in my culture.

             There wasn’t many materials that went into creating this piece. I used two things, a pencil and color pencils. My current work related to my last art piece because it was about me as well. My last piece was a unicorn with praying hands. It showed my love for unicorns and my love for The Lord. My inspiration came from people who showed their pride threw face painting art. I could have painted and done something more harder but I choose to just get the point across.

              I am most proud of how I did the flags. I gave them both enough space and I out lined them giving them enough time to shine. If I could change one thing it would be my hair. I wanted to take it into another direction  but couldn’t find the right way to do it. In conclusion I learned how hard it is to perfect the concept I want to do.

In this portrait, I chose to recreate an image I sent to a friend as a joke using watercolors. It is an image of me holding glasses in front of my face so that way my mouth looks bigger. I chose a bright yellow background because that is my favorite color and if I am choosing to display myself I want to be surrounded by things that I love. This work represents me as a person in the sense that I am very goofy and a lot of the things I like to do are pointless. However, I love to be creative and bright. I chose to use watercolors because of their ability to be layered. This way it was easy for me to maintain a vibrancy throughout the entire piece. The point was not to create clear precise lines with the paint. I wanted the paint to flow as freely as my thoughts. I then used a very thin, felt-tipped, black marker to outline my teeth and the glasses. This brought just a little more depth to the piece solely for aesthetic.

In order to complete this piece I first had to find a picture to replicate. My friend had made the suggestion to use the last photo I sent to someone. So I drew a sketch of the image in my sketchbook. I then grabbed thicker final papers because I wished to use paint, and I transferred my final design to the paper. I then began to work with the watercolors. I first painted my hair using a brown paint and a yellow color. The yellow mixed with a light brown for depth and then a thin brush with dark brown to add waves and layers to my hair. I then used a flesh tone to evenly shade my skin. Pink for lips, green for the eyes, black for the glasses and finally, bright yellow for the background.

I cannot say that a specific artist inspired this piece, but I will link an artist that I really enjoy which will definitely be influencing my future pieces. I enjoy Eugenia’s style so much and I hope to learn how to create art like her. https://www.flickr.com/photos/eugenia_loli/ . The specific technique required to complete her artwork is the eye for matching photographs together that typically aren’t supposed to go together. The key is to match the style of both images through manipulation to make it appear as if they are supposed to be together even if they clearly are not supposed to be. I am most proud of this work because of my quick ability to learn how to navigate the watercolor paints. The skill I learned through the completion of this project was that the paint to water ratio needs to be more water than paint. This high concentration of water allows for more layering and depth in the work. If I could change one thing, it would have to be the paper we paint on. I wish it was thicker.