Pivotal Pieces: A Look at My Personal Art History
In any part of life, there are pivotal moments that you look back on and realize how important they were to shaping who you are today. I’m here to share a few moments in my artistic journey that stick out as stepping stones to where I am now!
People always ask me “how long have you been doing this?” and, like many artists, my answer is simple: “forever!”. I’ve absolutely loved drawing and painting for as long as I can remember. While I’ve been through many different phases with my work, the act of creating is a core part of me. Let me take you through some of the moments that stand out.
In third grade, I started taking art classes outside of school. This quickly became the highlight of my week and I kept going to these classes through most of high school. Every student’s first project was a black and white charcoal pencil drawing. Our teacher had tons of images from old calendars, and we would choose one to copy for each project to practice techniques in pastels and pastel pencils. For my first piece, I chose an image of a tiger, since that was my favorite animal! This piece is dated September of 2004, making me 8 years old.
After that first piece, I did tons of drawings in pastel, mainly choosing landscapes and animals as my subjects. It was such a big deal in art class when you got to move on from pastels to working in acrylic paint. I still remember the THRILL of getting the confirmation from my teacher that I could start painting and the supply list to shop for acrylics! I think I moved on to painting in sixth grade. I don’t remember what my first piece was, but here is an example of some of my early acrylic pieces.
Going back a bit to fifth grade, which in general was a pivotal moment and one of my favorite years in school, I was doing so much drawing and doodling in class that my teacher pulled me aside to talk to me about it. She quickly realized I was indeed fully paying attention and absorbing everything, so I got her blessing to continue my sketches.
My most important drawing from this era was a pencil drawing of the dragon from the cover of Eragon. Between Eragon, Harry Potter, and tons of other fantasy series, I was constantly pulling inspiration for fun doodles and illustrations. The pivotal moment was not so much the drawing itself in this case, but the fact that when I finished it, all of my classmates wanted it! They said they would buy it so, I took my drawing home and made copies on our home printer. I was ready to make my entreprenuerial debut the next day, until my mom said that I couldn’t do that :(
In middle school, I started developing a real interest in fashion. My mom subscribed to a bunch of fashion magazines and I eagerly awaited the moment she would finish them and pass them to me. I started cutting them up and creating collages, and naturally started sketching clothing and designs. Armed with a new pink sketchbook that I picked out at Barnes & Noble, I started doing colored pencil illustrations of some of my favorite shots from magazines. I don’t remember what exactly sparked a sudden love of colored pencil, but they become my obsession! I saved up and treated myself to the Prismacolor pencil set of 132 which was my pride and joy for YEARS. This era was defining for many reasons, including confirming that I wanted to study fashion design, which I did! My degree is in apparel design from University of Delaware. These pencil sketches span from the summer before 8th grade through my sophomore year of high school.
In high school, I learned a ton and got to try tons of different materials. I tried oil painting for the first time, did drawing sessions with a model, and enjoyed countless projects that developed my artistic skills. For my AP art concentration, I chose to illustrate my favorite book, The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern. I illustrated my favorite scenes from the book in a variety of media including acrylics, colored pencil, and watercolor! This was the largest collection I had ever created at the time, and looking back was great practice for what I do now! The whole collection hung in my parent’s basement for years and I hope to be able to incorporate some of the pieces in my own home at some point.
During college, there were 2 illustrations that really heavily influenced what I do today. If you’ve followed me for a while, I’m sure you’ll recognize the influence these pieces had on my style! Since I was studying fashion design, I got to take 2 classes in fashion illustration. In these classes we did various projects, but quite a few of them focused on on learning to render fabrics (and models) in illustration marker. I had worked with markers before, but never consistently and not with high quality, alcohol based markers. I quickly fell in love with working with them, and junior year I did an illustration of two mermaids sitting on a rock watching the sunset. This illustration was one of the first pieces I posted after creating an Instagram for my artwork! To me, this was the moment my art business started. This particular piece is the reason I’ve illustrated so many mermaids over the years.
Not long after, in December of 2017, I started a large ink illustration of a mermaid over Christmas break. I was inspired to try stippling techniques from two artists I followed on Instagram, Lloyd Stratton and Sam Larson. I really admired both of their work and my love of detail had me itching to try this technique at a large scale. This 14 x17 inch illustration was inspired by a Triangl swimwear photo that I changed into a mermaid. This was an incredibly extensive project that cemented my love of working with micron pens. I’ve continued working in this style since, with varying levels of dots and detail. Lately, I often ink the outlines of my work on paper with micron pens and then scan the piece to then color it on my iPad!
