This year has been one hell of a ride. And looking back on it, I couldn't have done it any better. It is actually the first year I did things how I want to. Make what I wanna make and dictate the when, why, and how. I must say it was relieving. I would of gone mad had I drew another apple or some pretty flower. I was free to pull forth my own brand of twisted, beautiful art. I guess it was a risky idea to do so in general. I have habit of putting to much into my own work, and it has had a slight emotional toll on me. Still, I'm glad that I got to make something that is more personal to me than anything I have created previously. I really enjoyed the creative freedom to do what I wanted to do. At the same time, I still had an objective, but I had more ways to approach my art in comparison to previous classes. 

As for what could have been improved, I really don't have anything to critique. Most it was all well and good and in general a perfect system of progression. As for the new online submissions for AP art, I would say it is much easier than what was previously used. Most of it is already there, so all you need to do is post and write. If you have been in an art class for four years, that comes second nature to you. The events we participated in were hit or miss in all honesty. The peak-fest was quite disorganized and little to do with art and more about sales. The art show, on the other hand, was way better and gave me more of a chance to discuss my art and not worry if I would be able to sell my art or not. It's one of the main reasons I like to keep this as a hobby instead of being an artist for a career. It would drive me completely mad. Overall, I really did enjoy my final year in this art room.

This is by far the most personal piece I have ever created out of the twelve. It also, possibly, one of my most morbid works to date. For this piece is a more introspective piece with no mental disorder in mind. This piece is more of what allows me, in my opinion, to create such twisted works of art. In this self-portrait I expose the face behind the eyes. Like the last few pieces, I made an outline in pen before going over it with copic markers for detail work. After that, the black and red streaks were added via smudging in an attempt to make a more gritty appearance. Without spoiling much, this piece is filled with symbolism about what goes on within my mind and my very own brand of twisted imagination.

Being one of my last few pieces, I found myself quite please with the outcome of this piece. For those of you who don't know, Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) is a personality disorder categorized into the B cluster disorders. This cluster is comprised of personality disorders known for erratic, exaggerated, or otherwise over the top behavior. Those with narcissistic personality disorder are known for their extreme sense of self-worth. Many have egos the size of Texas and are generally considered shallow people. These people can also fly off the handle should someone threaten their self-image, but some are better at control than others. For this piece I wanted to capture that shallow and surface only beauty that most narcissists have. This piece shows that facade cracking away, almost like porcelain chip off a doll. Thus, exposing the inner, possessive beast that wears that face of an angel. Messing with a narcissists self-image can be cause quite unpredictable changes in mood. In this case, this piece includes self-harm and slight madness. Overall, I think this piece was one of my favorite "illness" works. I really think I have progress into a more gritty look, but not quite yet. The blood and dripping black I think turned out quite well. In summary, I good progression and lovely symbolic piece.

This piece was created based on the fear of machinery and advanced technology. Now more than ever, the fear of AI and machines taking over humanity has been at all time high. Most of this commotion has to do with the rise in advancing artificial intelligence and various robotics design to do jobs for people. This has lead to a big distrust and paranoia about such technological marvels. So much so it is almost how everyone is, in one way or another, afraid of spiders. This tehcnophobia is the basis of my piece in the form of a cyborg like figure, who is slowly being turned into more of a machine than a man. This piece was made using a penned outline and than shaded with copic markers. The shirt was made via prisma colored pencils. In general, this piece was similar to what I had in mind, but not quite. Personally, I am working on more realistic drawings in order to give my more morbid pieces a
more realistic feel to them. This machinery based piece would be no different. Aside from getting better, I think I could have done better with the dark and light areas in the internal gears and pistons. Aside from that, I think I could also make it more gritty and have a more used appearance to it. All in all a pretty average piece, but a stepping stone none the less.

For this piece I decided illustrate the fear of religion and went for a deity to really illustrate this. For this I decided to go for the Hindu goddess Kali, which is known as the goddess of destruction and death. She is said to be the destroyer of evil and the incarnation of Shiva, which is the creator and the destroyer. Aside from lore and stories, people with theophobia have an unconditional fear of religious iconography depicting a deity or sometimes the sight of religious servicemen and buildings can cause anxiety. For this piece I decide to go for purple as the main skin color with greys to help with shadows. I used various references from memory to decided on the various implements our goddess here would be using. Overall, this piece has some points I like and others I did not. Since I only had one purple, I felt that my overall choice of lights and darks was somewhat limited. Another thing I would have fixed would be the shading on some of the items she is carrying in her hand. The  things I did find successful was the hair. I wanted a different look to the hair this time which is why I used pen and ink to create it instead of shades of grey or browns. Overall, I think this piece was successful but also allow me to self-critique on what I should work on in the next piece.

For this piece I decided to venture further into various mental illnesses that have cropped up over past couple centuries. Back then, very little was understood about how the brain works and operates in regards to mental illness. In present day we may no more, but we are far off from truly understand the complexity of the brain. That isn't even accounting for how to fix it should things go awry. This has resulted in various pseudo-mental illnesses in order to explain away why someone is the way they are. For most it was easier to say those people are crazy rather than doing any actual investigation. One of these had to do with the Native American population and their respective culture. The origin of the illnesses name has to do with an Algonquin mythological creature known as the wendigo. This creature was said to symbolize the winter, starvation, and death. The creature's spirit would influence starving travelers to resort to cannibalism to survive. If they did, the spirit would proceed to posses and physically change their victims bodies. Forever hungry, these perfect hunters seek out their once fellow human beings. While that may sound like some horror story, people once had an mental illness frighteningly similar. While it didn't mutate people the very acts it cause were certainly enough to bring fear.  This pseudo-illness, known as wendigo psychosis, has been predominantly seen within North Eastern American tribes. Many of these cases involved Native Americans of the Cree tribe. The mental illness was characterized by the compulsion to eat human flesh even if food is nearby. Long story short, perfect idea for new piece. This piece was done with a pencil sketch and then a sharpie final outline. various skin tones and grays were used on the wendigo. For the background I used darker browns for the trees and whites and neutral grays for the snowy areas. Bones were done with skin tones and a blender to give a bleached look as well as cool grays. Overall, an interesting piece for a very frightening idea.

After creating the previous the piece based on a fear of flora, I felt it necessary to create one on fauna just to match. This piece is based on the fear of animals known as zoophobia. For this piece I created a pretty neutral background and made an outline in pencil. After that I went of the sketch with a final outline in sharpie. For this piece I decided to do exclusively in only copic markers. For the fur I used various neutral grays as well as sharpies to highlight the pieces of hair. For the connective between the the various animals and the human part as well, I used sharpie at first. I then went with different shades of red and for the lighter ends I used a white gel pen then went over it with red for lighter colors. I used a similar approach for the gums of the wolf. Over all I think I really enjoyed this one. I always like copic markers for their ability to create seemingly printed looks to drawn pieces. I also like the ease of blending that is not as crazy as water color but easier than regular prisma colors. Overall, I think I will be using copic markers in the future in creating for pieces like this. 

This piece is the first of my concentrations featuring a full body rather than a face. I must say it is very interesting and different change of  course. Obviously, more room work with in my opinion. For the start of this piece it worked out just like any other piece. I started with a pencil sketch before filling in with colors. I did all colors in groups of 3 shades. Skin,vines, and branches were all done this way. After that though, I decide to do something different. Usually I do this beforehand, but I outlined the whole thing in sharpie over the prisma. A last minute, impulse idea that I think added some definition to the piece. If I could change some stuff around, some definition in the skin and more details would be nice. I would also change the background to something for more dark for atmosphere. Overall, I think this piece was executed quite well. This piece has quite a lot of symbolism incorporated into the piece and would love to hear what people think it symbolizes. This piece was inspired by the fear of flowers aka Anthrophobia. I decided to interpret it a bit differently into an over all fear of flora. Overall, a well done piece in my eyes and one of my favorites in terms of idea and story.

​For all intents and purposes this piece was quite interesting development wise. I wanted to do an idea based on a mental disorder. The first one that came to mind was multiple personality disorder. While it may not be an official disorder, the idea was intriguing enough and has just finished watching the movie Split. As for pre-sketches, most were about faces along one person's head. These ideas were not what I was going for though. Then the idea of the idea of stretched skin. The idea was gross, but the sketch was calling to me more than the others. After choosing this I went to tracing the faces. I decided to go with only 7 faces instead of the original 12. After the sketch was complete I made the decision of which personalities I wanted for my piece. I wanted as much personality in each so I went for lots of expressions and symbolic colors. The 7 are as follows:
Red- A man full of anger, resentment, and frustration. His mood is seething rage to anyone. His color (red) symbolizes his fired up mood.
Yellow- A man of business if you want to put it lightly. The facial expression is one of greed and wanting everything that isn't his. Further highlighted by his monocle and jewelry.
Green-This was based of the Pixar movie Inside. Green was the color used for disgust and,as such, was used to symbolize his look of disdain and disgust for the others.
Blue-A drug addict. This personality is highlighted by various needles and his rather bloodshot eyes. Blue was used to show his relaxed, calm, and doped up mood.
Pink- A glutton at heart. He is more interested in stuffing his fat face than anything else. Pink was used to imply the actions of this one is like that of a pig.
​Purple- This is the most depraved of the 7. His face is curled in pleasure and excess just because of the cut on his face. This just goes to show his perverse nature. 
Pink/Purple- The only female of the group. The mask is meant symbolize a narcissistic and shallow character. The cracks serve to show the facade is peeling away to reveal the real person.
I did use a lot of black for this piece to specifically have a lot wrinkles for the expressions. I think this piece turned out quite well even though I used both water color and normal prisma colors. I would like to use new colors for expressions the next time I do a face.