Artwork
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I like to think of myself as the creative type. Since seventh grade, I've tried my hand at sketching, clay-sculpting, painting, metal-working, fine woodworking, and much more. Please take a look at some of my work, half of which I created in art class at school—and the other half at home:
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Pencil Sketches
During visual art classes in sixth and seventh grade, I made these two pencil sketches in which I practiced blending graphite of varying hardness. I completed the pig in sixth grade (on the left!) and the self-portrait (on the right!) the following year. If I were able to re-do my face, I would try to use three different shades—as the teacher had originally intended—instead of just two.
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Self-Portraits
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During visual arts class in sixth grade, I made another two portraits of myself (my favorite subject). The first, a two-dimensional drawing that accentuates my proboscis, became the mascot of my first YouTube channel, Oblift. The second, a three-dimensional clay sculpture, is filled with beads and rattles when shaken. Incidentally, in middle school, I believed my eyes were blue; in reality, they're more green/gray.
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Decorated Easter Eggs
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At home in eighth grade, I decorated chicken eggs, an Easter tradition. As a child, my grandfather and I would poke small holes in the top and bottom of white eggs before blowing out their innards and painting the dry shell. Since then, I've transitioned to the use of colored pencils, which permit more delicate, intricate patterns while making much less of a mess.
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Claude Monet Impression
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During English class in eighth grade, I created this painting for the artist project, for which students were assigned to produce an actual painting in their chosen artist's style (in addition to delivering a presentation about his or her life). Due to my appreciation for impressionism, I chose the most iconic impressionist of them all, Claude Monet, and recreated his 1884 Haystacks at Giverny.
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Islamic Piercing Project
For metals class in my freshman year of high school, my first major assignment was the multicultural Islamic piercing project, for which I was tasked with creating a piece related to Islam while incorporating a real Arabic word. My sculpture features a polished brass disc into which the Arabic word for 'Israel' (إسرائيل") is cut out. Held by two thick wires is a copper outline of Israel (including the West Bank and Gaza), which I submerged in a chemical solution to make black, highlighting the bitter hatred expressed by much of the Arab world toward the Jewish state. I don't recall what inspired such a politically-charged project, but my teacher found it so intriguing that she selected it to be showcased in the town library.
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'Nickel America'
During metals class in my freshman year of high school, my second major assignment was to learn how to solder. Similar to the Islamic piercing project, I cut out an outline of the continental United States from nickel sheet metal and soldered three brass discs on the three places I thought I might like to live at some point (if I could afford it!): Boston, Massachusetts; New York City, New York; and Charleston, South Carolina. If I could go back to re-do the project, I would instead place the three circles on the states outside New England to which I'd traveled at that point: New York, Florida, and California.
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Sterling Silver Ring
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During metals class in my freshman year of high school, my third and final assignment was to make a sterling silver ring. Now, I happen to have a fear—if not PTSD—of rings resulting from multiple episodes in which I was unable to remove them from my fingers. Still, I gave the project a go, but was so frustrated by the progress that I destroyed my first attempt with a vice. Needless to say, my teacher was not impressed. So, I apologized and requested a smaller piece of silver to make a simple pinkie-finger ring.
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Studio Glass Bowl
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At Monte Verde Art Glass Studio in the summer before my sophomore year in high school, I produced my first piece of glasswork, a wrinkled bowl of varying blue and green hues. After selecting several different shades of colored glass scraps (and an equivalent quantity of clear pieces), I smashed everything together in a large bucket. The shards were then melted together in a kiln and molded into the final product. Unfortunately, while it took just two days to make the bowl, it was five weeks before I actually saw it.
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'Save Wraps for Stuff'
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At home in tenth grade, I found myself with extra time over April vacation. So, I decided to make a contemporary art piece out of dozens of Dum Dum wrappers I had collected years earlier. I stapled the wrappers together in iterative alphabetical order such that each time I ran out of a particular flavor, I would simply skip to the next one in order. I followed this pattern until all the wrappers were connected.
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Salvador Dalí Impression
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For an end-of-year Spanish project in my sophomore year of high school, I attempted to recreate Salvador Dalí's 1931 The Persistence of Memory, perhaps the most iconic work of surrealism ever. As with the artist project two years prior, the artwork was accompanied by a presentation (in Spanish) of the artist's life. I think my work bears a striking resemblance to the real painting—at least from a distance.
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'Bolshevik Bread'
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During a STEM Club meeting in my junior year of high school, I practiced using the laser engraver by toasting a slice of generic, store-bought, pre-cut white bread. And what better to mark it with than Vladimir Lenin's promise of "Peace, Land, and Bread!" to the millions of Russian peasants after the revolution and World War I? We kept the bread above the kitchen sink for weeks until it began to mold.
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Paper Mache Spanish Bowl
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During Spanish class in my senior year of high school, the final (artistic) assignment was to create a paper mache bowl on which palabras exteriores (exterior words) listed your physical/overt characteristics while palabras interiors (internal words) described more personal/private attributes. One of my exterior words, for example, was moreno (brown-haired), while one of my interior words was inquieto (insecure).
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WHS Impressionist Landscape Painting
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During the initial lockdown in March, 2020, I took it upon myself to reproduce one of my favorite spring pictures from the high school. I'm no Bob Ross, so allow me to explain that those yellow dots are supposed to represent the thousands of dandelions that cover the school ground in early May. Also, the two brown rectangles represent my best attempt at painting benches. I haven't made much progress skill-wise since my last painting, but I guess that's what happens when you produce only one every three years.
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Frozen Pizza Realist Painting
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During the initial lockdown in March, 2020, I was also inspired to reproduce in paint a picture of a frozen pizza from the previous year. Compared to the landscape above, the pizza was considerably easier to paint because it was supposed to look two-dimensional. Thus, I didn't need to concern myself with distance or perspective. Instead, I could focus on shape accuracy and blending to best represent color variances of the melted cheese. My pair of compasses certainly came in handy when outlining the plate and pizza.
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