The self portrait illustation was assigned to us by our design teacher, Ms. Parkinson, where we were assigned to depict one of our qualities or traits that we thought were simultaneously our best and out worst quality at the same time.
In my self portrait illustration, I chose to portray one of my traits that I think is my best trait, which is my ability to be independent and self sufficient. Although, at the same time it is my worst trait because if I need help, I will not ask for it and I decide to try do it without any help because I feel like I should be able to do everything independently. To portray this, I depicted a person swimming away from a waterfall in a river, and at the end of the river on a pedestal, is a jar of cookies. Although the task looks impossible, the person swims up the river, oblivious to a rope in the water tethered to a stake in the ground. I chose these symbols to represent my trait of being independent by representing myself as the person swimming away from failure, the waterfall, towards a goal, the cookie jar. I did this because I feel like everything I do which is difficult in life, I feel like it is my job to do these tasks on my own.
Each of the colors present in my illustration supports the idea that I am depicting in the illustration. I chose to make the water a very dark blue showing my sense of being overwhelmed. The contrasting colors of blue and orange show that I feel helpless when I am trying to do many tasks alone, and I do not look for help because the orange rocks in the water help to support me as I proceed up the river, symbolizing my own achievements. Then I made the cookie jar clear to show that I can see my goal clearly, but it is still far away. That is how the color helps to support the idea I am depicting.
