Project 7: Self Portrait - Kurt Romero

For my self portrait, I wanted to create a simple drawing that has a lot of meaning behind who I am as a person. I am not mixed race, however I do consider myself a race traitor. I am full Filipino, but was born and raised in America. I honestly am not fully knowledgeable about my culture of being Filipino because my parents wanted me to grow up as an “American” child. I do not speak or fully understand my parent’s native language and unmotivated to learn about my culture growing up because I did not care much about it. The headband I am wearing in the picture is from an anime called Naruto. The reason behind the headband was to show how much I care for the Japanese culture a lot more. I loved watching anime and learning more of the Japanese culture when I was growing up. This is how I see myself as a race traitor. I am a Filipino American boy that sometimes wishes he was Japanese instead. This class has inspired me in making this simple self portrait. Even though I am not mixed race, I sometimes wish I could be a different race than the one I am now. It is similar to Rachel Dolezal and how she strongly believes in being a black woman. However, I would not go through changing my physical appearance because I do not have that strong beliefs as she does.

The process of making this self portrait was simple. I sketched an outline of the picture which took long because it is hard for me to draw. Once I have the outline, I went over the sketch with a black sharpie then erased the excessive amount of pencil markings. For the finishing touches, I used color pencils to color in the portrait. What it means to be an artist is to be able to express your feelings and I do strongly believe that when creating art.