Tag: art

Mixed on Campus #5 – Maeve Lucas

Alice Conner Leave a comment

Name: Maeve Lucas
Mix: Transnational Adoptee
Major & Year: BCN; Junior

Q: How has being mixed affected your campus experience?

A: It definitely took me some time to find my place on campus freshman year. There were certain groups I didn’t fit into as well because I was mixed and didn’t fully identify as one ethnicity. Mixed@Michigan has really given me a community that has allowed me to grow into myself.

Q: What do you wish more people knew about the mixed experience?

A: Almost every mixed person has gone through some type of scrutiny. While everyone’s experience is unique, mixed people often face what most minorities experience. Though we can also be scrutinized by our own cultural group. It’s a very “in-between” feeling.

Q: What kind of person do you aspire to be / who is the most influential person in your life?

A: My mom. Sometimes people feel like transnational adoptees feel like they were “saved” by their adoptive parents, and I think that terminology is flawed. While my mom is my best friend and biggest supporter, she is not my savior. My mom is my mom like your mom is your mom. I aspire to be a mom like her. If I could even be half as great as a mom she is, I would be happy with that.

Letters by Lydia: Positive and Negative Space

lydnas 1 Comment

Happy Wednesday everyone!  This week I wanted to talk about using positive and negative space.  If you don’t already know what that is, or need a quick refresher, here’s an example:

Positive space is the thing itself, and negative space is the lack of the thing, or what’s around it.  On the left, you can see that the “Hi” is written using negative space, because the color exists all around it, but the letters themselves are empty.  On the right, the “Hi” is an example of positive space, because it is the thing itself (by contrast, the white all around it is negative space).

This is something a lot of artists make use of, or at least are aware of, and the lettering community is a part of that too!

I was feeling inspired by spring (despite the icky weather today), so I drew some more in-depth pieces involving flowers that use positive and negative space.

Which one do you like better?  I hope you all have a great week and hopefully we’ll start to see some flowers blooming soon 🙂

Mixed on Campus #4 – Andre Nandi

Alice Conner Leave a comment

Name: Andre Nandi
Mix: Bulgarian & Bengali
Major & Year: Computer Science; Sophomore

Q: How has being mixed affected your campus experience?

A: It has put me in a unique position to look at situations from two very different perspectives. While it’s hard to find people exactly like me, I’m able to find some commonalities with a large spectrum of identities

Q: What do you wish more people knew about the mixed experience?

A: Being mixed means you are in a very interesting middle ground between identities. Every mixed person has a very special relationship with the cultures that make them who they are. While some embrace one and look like the other, others may embrace both and look like outsiders in both. Everyone navigates these complexities and finds a home in very different but beautiful ways.

Q: Who is the most influential person in your life?

A: My parents are the most influential people in my life. Whether it’s coming from poverty to living through the end of communism in their country, they took massive risks to come to the US and make a life for themselves. They constantly teach me very vastly different perspectives, and while I don’t always agree with them, these two sides make me who I am.

Letters by Lydia: Crayola Bright Colors

lydnas 1 Comment

Welcome back to another post!  My parents visited me last weekend, and my mom brought me a pack of Crayola markers (big shoutout to her <3), so I thought I’d do a quick little review! My mom and I share a love for Crayola markers, not only because they’re super cheap and accessible, but also because they’re incredibly vibrant and easy to use.

The set she got me is a set of 10, broadline markers in the “bright colors” selection.  As you can see from the swatches, they’re all super pigmented, some of them even being neon.  Crayola in general has an insane color range, and it’s so nice to be able to get sets like this with colors I’d actually use, as opposed to the typical, flat, basic colors you get from cheaper sets made for kids.

As for what makes these so great, Crayola markers, both the supertips and these broadline ones, are perfect for beginners in lettering, or people who just don’t wanna spend a ton of money.  The tips are flexible enough that you can use them as if they were brush pens, but you can also use them on their sides like highlighters, and with an even amount of pressure to get a consistent line.  Depending on how hard you press, the thickness varies wildly, which is another great quality because it makes them super versatile.  Another positive is that, because they’re inexpensive, you don’t have to feel bad about overusing them, experimenting with them, or not taking great care of them.

There truly aren’t very many downsides to these.  One slight negative is that the ink can be a bit thin and inconsistent–it’s washable, because it’s made for kids, so if you use two colors on top of each other, they’ll probably bleed a little bit.  The ink also might just bleed onto the paper you’re using.  Another strangedownside is that sometimes it can be hard to get the cap on and off, although that might just be this specific set.

Overall, a great set of markers! Thanks mom!

A Day In Our Lives #23

rissaw Leave a comment

Hey guys,

This week I am posting a sketch I did when I took my friend to go try out Digipaint club here on campus. They have weekly meetings and normally do cute fun things that use digital painting. The week that we attended, the club hosted a workshop on how to draw birds, as well as how to create your own creatures. It was a fun experience but due to my extremely busy school schedule, I will not be able to attend weekly.

 

I decided to draw cows, which are one of my favorite animals. I think they are so cute! I am also generally better at drawing women in my cartoon style, which made drawing human-cows even easier. I picked some cute light blue and pink colors just to get them to stand out a bit. If I had more time I could have accessorized them a little more. Hope that you like it!

See you next week,

Marissa 

 

Mixed on Campus #3 – Alanna Grace-Marie

Alice Conner 2 Comments

Name: Alanna Grace-Marie
Mix: Black, biracial (German & Nigerian)
Major & Year: Sociology – Afro-American Studies; Junior Transfer Student

I am a visual sociologist and multimedia artist. I use my art to tell my unique story as well as share Black history and culture to uplift my community with positive representation. My business instagram is @equitable.arts

Q: How has being mixed affected your campus experience?

A: Being a Black presenting biracial woman at a predominantly white institution, representation is hard to find. So I create my own! And I collaborate with others who have intersectional identities to share their stories too.

Q: What do you wish more people knew about the mixed experience?

A: The mixed experience is unique for every individual and it can be complicated in unique ways too! This isn’t always a negative experience, we can use our unique perspectives to brighten this world. So please, refrain from placing us in stereotypical boxes.

+1: I will write an autobiography one day soon to show the world how being both Black and biracial has informed me and shaped my experiences in this world. I was raised to act a certain way and certainly, society put more pressure on me to conform. But now, I reject this! I am all of my ethnicities and identities, uniquely me! No need to pick a side.

+2: Blair Imani is an educational inspiration of mine. She also rejects stereotypes of her identities and lives an authentic life to uplift all marginalized individuals.