Explanation:For most of my life, I have struggled greatly with mental health and self identity/body image. And to be honest, I am still struggling to this day. I don't know when or how it started, but I just remember this wave of unfamiliarity came over me, and it just decided to stay. I have struggled with mental health issues for the majority of my life. It wasn't until I was about eleven years old when I started to be affected by it more. I just went about life feeling numb to everything. And everyday I would cry. I was so frustrated. I didn't know what was wrong with me and I wanted all of those negative feelings to go away. I would cry to my mom but she would just dismiss my feelings saying: ¨ everyone feels that way sometimes¨ or ¨you have everything you could have in the world, you shouldn't feel that way¨. From ages twelve to fourteen, things just kept getting worse. I was diagnosed with depression and anxiety. And I turned to unhealthy coping mechanisms to at least try and relieve myself of the pain I was in. Now at the age of seventeen, I still struggle. But, I have learned to take more control over my emotions and how I deal with them. Ever since I was a little girl, I have always been relatively skinny. My family would call me “flakita” and “boney''. They would make little comments regarding my size. I never gave it much thought until I got to my freshman year of high school. I was afraid of change. I liked that people called me light and small. At that point I was afraid to start gaining weight. I started restricting myself and what I ate. It wasn't soon before I kind of forgot about managing what I ate. Life went on and the year went on and then Covid hit and school abruptly ended. I was stuck at home for months on end and had nothing to do so I just kind of started eating when I was bored rather than eating when I was hungry. So by the time summer came around, I had gained about twenty pounds. And people noticed. My Abuela told me I looked fatter. My mom told me my face looked rounder. I was shattered. The summer ended and my sophomore year started. Everything was virtual. I didn't bother getting out of bed and would just lay there listening to my teachers give their lessons on my computer. I didn't get up to eat for the whole day and then would eat some leftovers I had in my fridge way later in the day. By the summer of my sophomore year I had lost twenty pounds. Although I was never diagnosed with an eating disorder, It was evident that I was really struggling. Every day is difficult, but it's okay. Things may get better and they may get worse. But there's no harm in trying. I have such amazing friends that keep me on my feet and let me know that I am loved no matter what. And I love them with all my heart.
Artist Inspiration: |
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I took inspiration from Christie Begnell. She developed anorexia at the age of twenty and began to create art displaying her struggle. Although her work was simple, it held a lot of truth and brought a spotlight on the issue of disordered eating. And I wanted to have that same idea within my work as well. She also wrote a book called "Me and My Eating Disorder".
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Planning:
I wasn´t exactly sure on how I wanted to execute this project. I´ve experimented with Photoshop a few times before, but I had never actually created a piece of artwork with it. When this project was first introduced to my class I had an idea already brewing in my head.
I drew out a few planning sketches into my sketchbook and took notes on how I wanted things to look and fit together.
Process:
To begin this project, I started off by making a few planing sketches into my notebook. The fist sketch was a drawing of my waist with a tape measure wrapped around it. I wanted the background to be black so I shaded it in with marker. After some more thinking, I remembered I had a few photos of an X-Ray I had gotten on my chest a while back and thought it would be cool to try and incorporate it into my final piece somehow. I took a few pictures of myself standing holing up my sweatshirt so that my waist was exposed. I then picked my best photo and saved it to my google drive. I first started this project in Adobe Photoshop on the school computer. But I then realized that I wouldn't be able to complete it at home. So I decided that I would just restart the whole project on my home computer in Photopea. Although Photopea was slower and harder to work with than Adobe Photoshop, I quickly learned my way around it and got my project completed. I started off by downloading the pictures I had taken on my phone onto my google drive. The first image I uploaded I was the photo of my waist. I carefully cut out and separated by body from the background. I zoomed in some more to get a more precise edge. When I was done with that, I then took my image of my X-Ray and put it into another layer. I cut out the image along my bones and then dragged the cut out image that I had on top of my the first image of my waist. I layered my X-Ray over my chest. I brought down the opacity of the image and and lighted it up a bit so it would be a little more prominent. I faded the edges of the X-Ray so it was more cohesive with the background image. When that was done, I created another layer to change the color of the background. I initially wanted my background to be black but the pants I was wearing in the image were also black. I wanted the image of my body to stand out more so I decided to change it to a muted purple color. I chose the color purple because it is the color that often represents disordered eating. Next I went in with my paint brush tool with that same purple color on another layer and outlined the edges of the body some more. A last minuet idea I had was to use the paint brush tool with low opacity and a reddish, purple color and go around my fingers and knuckles to represent a lack in circulation in my body. In some of my experimental pictures I took, I had planned on wrapping a measuring tape around my waist. I still wanted to incorporate that into the picture. I again took the paintbrush took with a more angular brush and just kind of made a random shape in yellow along the background. After that I went along that same line with a slightly darker yellow for contrast. I then used a smaller brush with black to create little line to indicate measuring marks along the edge of the yellow line.
Compare and Contrast:
I believe I ties my final piece to my inspiration very well. Christie Begnell's artwork was simple and straightforward and I wanted my artwork to be like that as well. Even though the pieces look very different, they hold the same type of message.
Experimentation:
I had two other ideas that I had experimented with for this project. I was first thinking out just displaying my waist by itself. But I found that it was a little too plain for my liking. I took multiple pictures of myself. Some of of them were just me holding up my shirt . Others were of me pulling the measuring tape around my waist and another one was he holding up my sweatshirt with the measuring tape jut wrapped around me.
Reflections:
Overall I liked how my piece turned out. Although, there are many things I know that I could improve on. If I were to try and do another project though the use of visual manipulation I would want to spend some more time exploring the application figuring out which tool I would want to use and how I would use them. I could defiantly use some improvement with the cut out feature of Phototpea. But for my first time ever using a Photoshop app for an art project, I did great.
A.C.T. Connections:
1. Clearly explain and describe how you are able to identify the cause-effect relationship between your inspiration upon your artwork?
- I am able to identify the cause and effect relationship between my inspiration upon my artwork by the message that Is conveyed between the two pieces.
2. What is the overall approach (point of view) the author (from your research) has regarding the topic of your inspiration?
- The author Christie Begnell's point of view regarding the topic of my inspiration is very pronounced. She created her art throughout her struggle with anorexia, depression and anxiety. And she continued to create art and spread the message of body positivity throughout her recovery. Which is kind of the same idea I incorporated into my own artwork.
3. What kind of generalizations and conclusions have you discovered about people, ideas, cultures, etc. while you researched your inspiration?
- I have discovered that many, many people in the world are struggling. We may not be struggling with the same issues. But, in the end we got to fight that lonely feeling and try to look forward to becoming a better person in the future. So many people in the world are going about life struggling with some type of eating disorder and I believe that if people see other peoples stories on how they have struggled and have gotten help to recover, maybe that will inspire to help themselves and get better.
4. What was the central idea or theme around your inspiration research?
- The central idea of my research was to find an artist that created art that represented the reality of eating disorders.
5. What kind of inferences (conclusions reached on the bases of evidence and reasoning) did you make while reading your research?
- While researching inspiration for my piece I came to the conclusion that there are many artists that create art representing the reality of mental health. I chose the artist I did because not only did she create art showing the struggle of disordered eating , she actually has struggled with one. And I think that adds a lot of value to her work.
Bibliography:
Lakritz, Talia. “These Drawings Show What It's Really like to Have an Eating Disorder.” Insider, Insider, 7 June 2017, https://www.insider.com/eating-disorder-art-book-2017-3#she-struggled-with-depression-and-anxiety-through-her-adolescence-which-worsened-when-her-parents-split-and-she-broke-up-with-a-long-term-boyfriend-2.