Tag: illustration

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!

OTM #30: Suit

katelynski Leave a comment

I think I must be sleep deprived, because I’m at a point where I think a person walking down the street in a suit is a Succession character. It’s coming to that point of the semester, though; everyone is tired and checking out, ready for summer. I’m first and foremost ready for spring, though, something we are apparently in currently yet the nasty wind and flurries has me begging to differ. I think it’s funny how much I allow what I’m watching to imprint on my life; in many ways, making fun of the professionalism in Succession has helped me lower the pressure of professional work settings and interviews. The less seriously I can take things, the easier they will be to overcome, and that’s really motivated me over this semester. Failure is vaguely exciting and moments of stupidity (such as above) bring me a joy that I can’t quite explain – either way, everything is fun when you find a way to make it less serious. I hope you are all powering through the end of the semester!

A Day In Our Lives #23

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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.

OTM #29: Sketchbook

katelynski Leave a comment

Lately, I’ve missed the freedom of having a sketchbook. I used to fill out at least a page every day in high school. I’d take the time to sketch in classes and then color when I got home using my fancy Copics. There was something freeing about it; there isn’t an undo button like there is when I draw digitally, so I’d be forced to exert confidence with each and every line. After a while, I started to care less and less about making a perfect drawing, moving in favor of filling out the page with as many sketches and ideas as I possibly could. It brought me solace.

Now, though I have a physical sketchbook, it doesn’t feel the same as high school. I left all my fancy pens and markers in my hometown, leaving me sketching with only a black BIC pen. It’s still just as fun, but I realized that I missed the clutter of colors scattered across pages. Something had to be done about this, I thought. I need the solace of a sketchbook again.

So, I’ve started to use my same old sketchbook methods but digitally, now – I cover a huge canvas in as many doodles as I can, finished or unfinished. Mind you, this is a very unconventional method for digital artists; usually, it’s good to fill out one canvas with one drawing to preserve a higher quality. But for me, it’s fun to watch one canvas build up art over time. Every drawing is small in perspective to the whole canvas, alleviating any pressure I feel about creating a “perfect” drawing. It’s like a time capsule, a way to look back at my state of mind as I draw through each week, and I didn’t realize how much I missed that simple feeling until I started again. Below, you can see two examples (there’s even some old OTMs on these, haha)! 

They’re a little messy, a little disorganized, but there’s so much love in them, and that’s what makes me happy. It’s fun to just go crazy and draw to my heart’s content all on one page, rather than focus on what used to make me scared about art (a perfect portfolio piece, dozens of hours sunken into one piece, extreme detail and technical skill). If you’re an artist and stuff like that’s been giving you some extra stress, maybe it would be fun to wind down with a massive sketch canvas, too! Have a great week!