DRAWING AND PAINTING
WHAT'S IT LIKE BEING YOU?
This unit was designed in the wake of the 2009 suicides in an effort to create a venue where students could find their voice, answering the prompt: “What’s it like being you?” A place where they could safely show, through metaphor and acrylic paint techniques, how they are doing and what they’re thinking about. The safety lies in the anonymity and connections made in the class. Now it’s time for us to listen to their message.
James Kim
This Online learning year has put me in a battle field of unfamiliar territory. Like the Allies in the second world war, this online year is a new, scary, and dangerous frontier, where I put up with struggles every day. The constant anticipation I feel as I wait in my room while clicking refresh on my schoology assignments is like if I were waiting still in a shell crater/trench, paranoid and tired. The energy and hope is drained from the soldiers eyes in my portrait, and the same goes for my mindset in online school. This online battlefield is emotionally draining, so the paranoia and work related stress I feel causes my depression, which is the dark and soggy rain that drips on my soldiers helmet. This depression is also the overall dark blue color scheme of the painting which I chose to use (a very melancholy color). This school year is a grim time and this painting which shows the cold and wet war zone is just how I feel as a person this year.
Anonymous
Im a artist with a bad sleeping schedule and constant identity crisis and caffeine addiction who doesnt now how to deal with their feelings or mind my favortite medium is ink or graphite I like to read and post my drawings into my insta art account
Untitled
Anonymous
I am a junior currently taking drawing and painting. I do not have a preferred medium, but the one I spend the most free time doing is drawing.
Alex Fish
My name is Alex Fish, and I'm taking Painting and Drawing. My favorite medium is digital because it's very easy to undo and try new things in each piece without fear. I enjoy crafts, mechanisms, and engineering, next year I plan to increase the scale of my builds and work very hard on a halloween costume unlike anything I've built before.
Indifference
Acrylic on Canvas
18 x 20
Anonymous
I'm a sophomore at gunn and I'm currently taking drawing and painting. I love working with graphite and digital because there are so many different things you can do with both. I'm really passionate about learning languages and creating art and I hope to continue to do these things even after I graduate.
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[Written Commentary]: Everyone has something weighing down on them, whether it be expectations, regret, or something entirely different. For me, I've always had to conform to these old and rigid expectations that were constantly placed on me by someone else, but while growing up, I realized how absurd some of those can be. I'm constantly trying to break the constraining and heavy expectations placed on me. However, it is also very difficult to cut some of thesd weights out, especially when it's placed by the people closest to me. Even though there will always be a handful of weights, even simply cutting one, to begin with, lifts a lot of burden off my shoulders.
Cutting Weights
Acrylic on Canvas
15 x 20
Roderick Van Breemen
I am Roderick a creative and passionate to create art. Sometimes building something with my hands or precise work. My favorite medium is charcoal. In my free time I play with clay, draw, play video games and sports.
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[Written commentary]: Life is connected time, time never stops not when someone else dies, not when you are sad or depressed. Your life like times keeps on going forward until your time is up. And when your time's up and you cease to exist, means time for you has also stopped. During the time you still have though, Life acts like many bridges going on as far as the eye can see, glistening at the top peaking your curiosity of what there will or could be. But climbing these bridges isn't always easy. Sometimes facing bridges with no handlebar, and no show of where to go. Or the wind swaying from one side to another pushing you off your ladder, off your course. Thick and clogging Mist blocking your view, of the direction you wanted to go. All the hardships of climbing the ladder threatening to throw you off when you climbed so high. Making you wonder if you should have climbed the ladder to begin with.
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Unstable Ladders
Anonymous
Staying at home has been an interesting experience for me. I like to appear happy in front of other people, but when I’m alone it’s more difficult. Sometimes when things get overwhelming I feel like I’m on the edge. I’ve been grounding myself by admiring nature and thinking of the positive aspects of staying home. I find myself paying more attention to the ordinary objects around me. Drawing my focus to simpler tasks like doodling or eating a plate of fruit allows me to escape.
Tines
Acrylic on Canvas
16 x 20
Anonymous
I have never been self-conscious about my weight or body. That is until I went to the doctors, then it seemed that I was given arbitrary information then left alone. Alone, I had to fix myself. I had to fix this never-ending insurmountable problem. But while I was fixing that, another part of me broke.
Anonymous
As a student I often have difficulty managing myself. School take up so much of my time that I’m left exhausted and with very little time to do what I want. I took inspiration from cartoons in this painting. When a character has a dilemma, cartoons sometimes show a literal angel and devils on the character’s shoulder. Similarly, when I finally have time for myself, I can either take care of myself, or throw caution to the wind and do something that I know will bring me more suffering. An example of taking care of myself is going to bed earlier instead of staying up till ungodly hours, which is shown as the angel in bed ready to sleep. An example of doing something that will harm me is going on my phone for hours to play video games or social media, therefore wasting my time and getting less sleep, shown as my phone. I am in the middle making the decision.
Anonymous
Confidence was the only big thing I struggled with. Although I'm much more confident now than I was 2 years ago when my self-doubt was at its peak, the unconfidence still lingers. When I first heard the prompt for this piece, to paint an expressive “self-portrait”, I immediately knew that I had to convey this big part of my life that shaped who I currently am.
Anonymous
For my non-traditional self portrait I wanted to portray how I have become more hooked to my phone during this pandemic. I feel like I need to be connected and always have my phone on me. I have noticed that when I walk my dog after classes I tend to focus more on my phone than the actual walk and disconnecting is an issue. I feel like technology is taking up more and more an important role in our lives and it is especially difficult to disconnect from it.
Anonymous
In this non-traditional self portrait, I wanted to capture the feeling of freeing myself from expectations. The mass of white birds represents the people around me and what the “standards” are. By flying away towards the light, the bird is freeing itself from its starting point and growing to become a more complex being. The transparency of the birds shows how little people know about the world around them. While anyone can see themselves as the solid bird, the wisp-like birds highlight the sonder of life.
Dia Dhariwal
This piece represents how I feel when creating new relationships, I never feel like I'm authentically being myself when talking to someone. In every relationship I seems to portray one specific part of my personality and show it as an extreme instead of showing the versatility of who I am because I'm scared that they won't like who I actually am. At times when I look at myself I feel like I don't know who I am, I portrayed so many people and it just feels like everything I'm thinking and doing isn't actually the core “me.” It's been years where I just feel like I take snippets and pieces of other peoples personalities and take away parts of me just to seem appealing.
Untitled
Acrylic on Canvas
16 x 20