For this self portrait, I mainly took inspiration from my week 2 journal entry as well as the personal questions in the project guidelines. I think simple cartoon fish are one of the cutest subjects to add when drawing, and many of my childhood memories revolve around the ocean and fish. So I thought that drawing me playing with little orange fish would work perfectly. I remember watching so many animations as a child, many of them being stop motion. My favorite had to be Gumby. I really loved the contrasting colors of Gumby and his pal Hokey, as well as the way they were claymation figures. I thought Gumby’s character design was so cute, and he really inspired my era of putting faces on random objects and giving them characters, which I thought was the epitome of cute as a child. In my portrait, The stylized facial features resemble a similar look as Gumby’s which really simplify and draw attention to the caring sincere expression. I also noted in my professional journal entry that I think using warm palettes or bright/bold colors make the piece evoke happier feelings. Most of my pieces are mostly red, pink, and yellow, which I also wanted to use for this piece. Since I added fish I thought a complementary background would really draw focus to the figure’s body language/details. The stark color differences also remind me of the common primary color palette of red, blue and yellow, which commonly is associated with children/younger audiences. Using “childish” colors as well as rounding out most of the figure’s anatomy really gives my portrait a soft/playful feel. The wavy lines really give a sense of whimsical movement, which Studio Ghibli uses when animating hair/fabric to give it an exaggerated feel. Also a lot of cute things are tiny, and I think the scale of the fish compared to the figure really adds to the composition’s success.
Below are my answers to a few of the questions:
-What is your best/worst memory from your childhood?
- best: going to the aquarium when i was a little girl, specifically on my 6th or 7th birthday, it was rainy, but we enjoyed it anyway. I made an entire word doc about how I would open my own aquarium that would help and rescue injured animals
-Are you frequently influenced by your emotions?
- yes. always. Most of my art pieces are created due to how I am feeling or to evoke a certain emotion from a viewer.
-What are some of your favorite animations?
- Gumby, Studio Ghibli films, powerpuff girls, Adventure time, iSpy
-If I could keep any animal as a pet, I would choose…
- an octopus
-My favorite type of art is… because….
- my favorite type of art is thematic/emotional art because i love the way that an artist’s work can draw such raw and intense emotion from a viewer. when looking at pieces with warm tones it makes me feel safe and i’m so drawn to warm color palettes, very comforting and aesthetically pleasing.
