Capstone Drawing: Progression of Emotions

Like other art classes, at the end of the semester means, chaos, stress, and capstone final projects. These projects are supposed to be examples of your creative capabilities (which hopefully you have some left by the end) and also skills acquired throughout the semester. For our drawing final we were instructed that we needed a set of three drawings We had the freedom to draw whatever anyway we wanted to. I decided to use charcoal, and draw figures. I hated figures before, but for some reason I had this ridiculous idea to have figures be my subject for my capstone! Maybe I drank to much coffee and felt super confident when I wrote my proposal paper, cause I have no idea what I was thinking! There is a reason why I never posted a picture of my self portrait. I hate drawing humans. dumb humans. Anyway I have included some parts from my capstone proposal so you can understand the inspiration from the pieces.

The capstone project I propose is that of a personal journey of strong emotions and growing up. It is a reflection on my personal emotional history. The first drawing is of a little girl’s hands clasped within a father’s hands. The next sketch shows a self-portrait of a bent head and outstretched hand. Last is the third sketch that shows a close up of eyes peaking out behind fingers and the gesture for quite. I also am inspired by the realism paintings of Honore Daumier. His paintings have a very sketchy characteristic to them. I was inspired by the boldness of his actions and how he was not afraid to stand and speak his mind through his art. He often exposed the un-glamorous side of life that many people in France at that time were trying to avoid. To me his paintings and prints have a lot of feeling and emotions packed into them. I wish to do the same in my progression of drawings.



The first is to represent my childhood. My father was diagnosed with leukemia when I was young. During this time my dad was gone a lot for treatments. The drawing is to represent a happy beginning to my life, but the fact that he is cut out and the values are extremely dark with high contrast, suggest a different theory of the on-coming sorrow.

After my dad’s cancer was in remission I was old enough to where we could have plenty of tension in our daughter father relationship. It was not a happy time. The hand is a symbol of stop. There was a lot of anger in my life at that time.

The last drawing expresses my teenage years and the present. I learned to hide my problems, but at the same time I found ways and some special people to express them to. I started dancing and taking art classes again. I have an amazing best friend who supports my artistic craziness. I knew I couldn’t be cut from the same cookie cutter my small town or parents had to offer anymore. By trying to be an individual in a county with less than a thousand people is not easy though. I had to be careful who I shared my secrets with. Still today I worry about expressing myself. Everybody has secrets no matter if they are good or bad.