More Than Meets the Eye
Paloma R.
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I’ve always loved creating art. It brings me so much joy to make things I can share with others. Through art, I feel as if I can connect with my inner child, let go of the critical perfectionist part of me, and authentically express my creativity. Evoking emotion through art is very important to me, especially evoking emotions that people haven’t felt or thought about for a while. I want to be able to make them feel something or reconnect with the feelings or memories that they had. Although I try to let my creativity flow when creating art, I do have a specific way I usually create. I tend to start with a concept sketch and test a color palette. I will then see where the sketch and colors take me. I try to focus on layers and have depth and little fun details just so the viewer notices more things as they look at it. I use a vibrant color palette, similar to those I used when I was younger, to connect with my inner child.
As kids, many of us were taught to express our emotions through tv shows or series with vibrant characters. However, once we start growing up, we start to realize the true complexity of emotions, and it doesn't seem as simple as the shapes and colors that represented emotions as kids. I wanted to try and encapsulate the complexity of human emotion through a cartoon style while still incorporating a bit of realism to try and connect with viewers. That is why I chose to title my piece "More than meets the eye."
When choosing characters, I wanted some characters to represent emotions that they aren't usually associated with. For example, the sun depicts sadness, and the moon, joy. I also wanted to have a background with stark contrast and add small details and textures to some of the characters to truly represent the complexity of emotions.
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Expressing myself creatively has helped me relieve so much stress, especially in the last year with college applications on top of a heavy course load. No matter how busy I was, I would always try and sit down and at least sketch, because just being creative and creating art helped me decompress.
