About me
I began my art journey in high school at Mount de Sales Academy. Here I used my skills to focus on realism. Most of the work that I produced was from images, real life, and what others wanted me to create using my skills. Through high school, I was able to begin developing skills that I brought to college, but not fully create the work that I wanted.
As an Art & Design major at Frostburg State University, I had to develop an idea of what separated me from my peers. This overall idea has been the core reason why I am creating my current portfolio. I needed to focus on what I wanted to create and not what others expected from me. With the subject matter of myself, I am able to concentrate and perfect my techniques, color palette, and styles and overall create what I want my art to look like. Through my experiences as an artist at 20 years old, I have realized what I wanted and whom I wanted to be as an artist.
Artist Statement
When I think about myself and the work I create, I think of the main reason I make art and am an artist. I look at myself and see that I am a woman who is particular about detail and willing to explore new styles. As a woman, I value the concept of the female figure and have had a particular interest in making the female figure more beautiful than it already is through the artistic mediums I use. Every piece I create is different in its own way even if it is the same subject matter or similar. For the work I am creating at this point in time, I am diving into different techniques and practicing on myself. I am exploring myself through my portraits in an effort to understand myself as a person and an artist.
For each of my paintings, my medium of choice is oil on canvas. I employ multiple layers of shadows and highlights to enforce the idea of fine detail. I use multiple brushes to blend the pigments together to create a soft blend throughout the variations of color contrasts. In every artwork, I choose a unique color palette that works throughout the canvas. With these color palettes, I want to explore various color patterns and enjoy using bright colors that would make the subject matter interesting to the human eye. Capturing the idea the viewer feels when seeing these bright colors has always been a curiosity for me. In my newer paintings I try to search for something new that I have not previously tried; a technique, a color arrangement, or a concept, while the reoccurring themes tend to be a self-portrait and human form related.
This theme also occurs in my drawings. I use a range of materials, pencils, ink pens, and alcohol-based blending markers. The markers allow me to blend my work easier to create realistic portraits with total control. Unlike painting, if I make a mistake with markers, I simply cannot cover it up. I use these mistakes to grow, finish the image, and enjoy my mistakes as I am learning more techniques to complete the work. I focus my work on realism and pay close attention to every tiny detail to capture the full potential of the whole image. I appreciate all of the fine details of skin, hair, fur, feathers, and the contrasts of dark or light areas. Though I enjoy doing realistic drawings, I am exploring more colors and bold images to try and accomplish the goals I also have for my paintings.