my artwork

Long time no see!! I've been super busy lately - although its been really occupying, one of my favourite things this year has been completing my Advanced higher Art folio. I was given a lot of freedom with my project and it was great to explore different areas of portraiture. I decided to focus on a theme of 'Disturbed Minds', hence the angsty portraits you will see below. I took inspiration from several artists from Vincent Van Gogh to Cara Thayer & Louie Van Patten who I found on tumblr! I'm really proud of my finished work so I thought I would share my process with you all.

First I did some simple sketches and poses, then moved into some more detailed monochromatic studies. I experimented with both white and black paper to try and test myself with tonal control - drawing on black paper is so time consuming and takes so much concentration but I think the ultimate effect is really cool! Inspired by Cara and Louie I then moved into colour and dramatic close ups, using a mix of acrylic paints and coloured pencils.

I can't believe I used to be scared of paints...I <33 acrylics

This is my final piece inspired by Cara and Louie. It's the biggest painting I've ever completed, using A1 paper. I wanted to experiment using really intense colours to create a painting that was both realistic but still expressive. It's one of my favourite pieces of work! I wish I timed how long it took me so I could complain about it, but this piece was a work in progress for so many weeks there was no way in hell I could have kept track. This portrait was chosen to be displayed in our local museum for a showcase - it was so cool to see my own work hanging up in public - although it felt kind of weird, like that one time my selfie came up on the board in English class a couple of years ago, except this time it was intentional..

This marks a weird transitional stage where I was really interested in line and had way too much fun creating these squiggly portraits (I wish I was Nikos Gyftakis) This style naturally led me on to explore Edvard Munch, king of morbidity. It resulted in more stylistic portraits which was something I had never really dared to do before!!

Basically Munch was really into the theme of death, so I took a really literal approach and photoshopped skulls on to my face, then created undead Kirsty. It was so fun. In my large final pieces I decided to go crazy expressive which was pretty unheard of for me, and it felt pretty great to let loose and paint with no guidlines or preliminary drawing! LIFE ON THE WILD SIDE

Finally I decided to go for a more classic approach and took inspiration from my main man Vincent Van Gogh (I know I'm totally cliche.) His paintings were characterised by their symbolic use of colour and visible brushstrokes creating swirling patterns. I tried to emulate this, except I used oil pastels because I'm an amateur (and who really has time to use oil paints???)

This brings us to the end of this year's artwork! Even though I'm going to study English at uni I really want to keep going with my artwork because it's been a big part of my life and something that I can always return to if I'm stressed or fed up. I'm really proud of my work this year and just wanted to share it all! I hope you enjoyed it. Now my exams are over I'll hopefully be posting more on here too!

teenage dream? nah

As I'm sure many fellow students have, I've been forced to formulate an immediate answer whenever someone asks, 'So now you're about to leave school, have you decided what you want to do with your life?'
And after I've said it more times than I can count, I'm starting to doubt the truth behind my perfect retort to the all-important question. Do I really want to spend the first quarter of my life in education, just to spend the next quarter paying off debt for said education? I've always hated the phrase 'life is short'  but I think it might start to seem like it is when 50% of my time on this planet ends up being used up worrying about school in one form or another.

I feel a certain affinity with Tom Hansen (500 Days...) in that my expectations for life in general have been heightened -and ruined- by the movies. For my recent ambivalence concerning my future, I'm blaming the mighty Richard Curtis; does it really matter if I get a degree? It won't matter that I'm in a dissatisfying dead-end job when I finally meet the love of my life. Unfortunately I've began to realise that Hugh Grant is probably slightly too old for me (just slightly). So we're back where we started and I'm crying over my personal statement again.

are you swooning? i'm swooning. we are all swooning

Perhaps it's my fault for immersing myself completely in fiction and living vicariously through film/TV/book characters - but I keep finding myself just wanting more from life. I'm tired of surrendering to mundanity. I want to fall in love, to speak a foreign language, to ride a camel, to go pearl diving. These things might sound ridiculous when put in a list like that, but the infuriating thing is that I know they are all achievable. And if I cement myself in one place for the sake of studying, are these experiences always going to be just out of reach for me?

Don't get me wrong, I love to learn. I love reading books that are out of my comfort zone. I love working in a team to create something that we are all proud of in the end. I love the satisfaction of finally understanding something I've been unable to get my head round. What I don't love is the be-all and end-all nature of it. Once you have the free will to decide, your choice is to either devote all your time (and indeed money) to education, or reject it completely. I want to choose the first option, but I'm worried I'll be completely consumed by it in the end.

And this is the part where my mother/teacher/adult figure makes an attempt at what they believe to be a sympathetic look, even though they tuned out halfway through my monologue. Then they'll say something vague about how smartphones have turned us into the laziest generation yet, and how we're so ungrateful, how we're so privileged to get this experience, how we must stay in education as long as possible because they didn't...You know the rest. 

I'm left in just as much of an existential crisis as I was before.The hypocrisy of the situation really gets to me - we refuse to take teenagers seriously on any level, but expect them know their life goal before they're old enough to watch Trainspotting.

Some fitting closing words? Choose life guys. CHOOSE LIFE