I wanted to represent the feeling of being overwhelmed. I chose to title this painting “Chill Out” because that is what I get told most often when I am feeling overwhelmed but it never helps. The girl shown is painted in multiple colors. She is portrayed this way because frequently, when overwhelmed, a multitude of emotions are felt at once like sadness, weariness, and anger. The subject is wearing a school uniform to show how school can add a lot of stress to an individual’s life. The uniform shows how, even in the midst of immense pressure, she attempts to look “put together.” The background is filled with segments of a local newspaper in my town called The Frontiersman. Articles describing landfills, Covid-19 cases, and police reports highlight how events in your community can feel devastating, especially for the youth. I outlined the subject and words like landfill, testing, and hospitalization in red to portray an atmosphere of urgency and anxiety surrounding her. I feel that this painting touches on the struggles teenagers face in the world today.

My art work is self portrait of myself made out of cloth. Mrs. Holler asked us to take a picture of ourselves then to separate the darks from the lights on our clothes and faces. We had to find cloth that fits the colors we want and how dark we wanted them to be then we stitched them together. I usually just draw something then out line it then thicken the lines in front then color. But I do think it turned out pretty good for my first time though. The idea behind the art work is to look at it and see a person who looks like me. I know there’s no eyes no lips no nose but you can kind of see me.

I split my face in half, using pinks and greens with a high contrast purplle. Cutting, gluing, sewing & stitching over several weeks in the studio was a tiring process at times but I had fun making it. I didn’t have a real plan or idea behind my work other than pretty contrast and blocky light values on the face to make something cool. I hoped this piece would make me proud and be something I could spend a lot of time on. I’ll probably put it on my wall. I always struggle with self portraits (looking at my own face makes me anxious) using extreme colors and a difficult perspective helped me get through that. Creating has been a passion of mine since I was little and I hope this or anything I’ve made touches someone enough to make them smile.