Week 5 Art Project Self Portrait ~ Diane Lee ~ ASA 115

Hello everyone! 

My self portrait is a depiction of me just enjoying myself with my hair all crazy and natural. I was motivated by the pure joy of being proud of my mixed heritage. Surprisingly, there was a time when I just wanted to be completely one race. I believed that if I was one race, then I could just call it a day instead of always feeling like I was too Black and not Hmong enough or not Black enough and too Hmong. But, in time, I came to love that I am both because I started to embrace being 100% me. The first step in creating my self portrait was to choose a picture of me smiling. Once I chose that picture, I started to outline my features with my pencil in the center of the blank piece of white paper. When I was done with looking at the picture and sketching myself, I outlined my hair and placed questions and comments that made me doubt myself as an individual. To me, my hair has always been the one thing that I hated about myself, but now it is one of the many things that I love about myself. Therefore, I like to think of this art as a representation that nothing can get into my hair because my instinct is to always smile! I wanted to color it but I was too scared that I would ruin it, so I just left it in pencil. I have not drawn in so long but being an artist for me is all about real expression that is true to me. As an artist, I hope to be empowering and encouraging. Plus, when creating art, there needs to be some sort of passion behind it so that the finished piece makes you genuinely cry, shout, laugh, or smile!