Self-Portrait Illustration

The illustration was a project that we did that required us to use a symbol from our essay to convey a meaning.

The meaning that I was attempting to convey is that originality is redefining what people think they already know. Since this is a difficult theory to understand, I used the example of music to help showcase what I meant. Gramophones are things of the past, so I used this to show older influences gave newer generations of musicians a voice. A prime example of this would be how Radiohead used the psychedelic style of Pink Floyd, but modified it to create their own sound. The record on the gramophone is meant to represent bands like Radiohead: bands that drew from the influences of the past. Since a gramophone can play many records, it also shows how various artists could use the same influence to guide their work. The rainbow that is coming out of the end of the gramophone signifies the multitude of possibilities of sound that can come from writing songs with an influence from the past. I used Adobe Illustrator to create this image. I first found a picture of a gramophone and then used the pen tool in illustrator to trace it. This may have been the hardest part in the process for me. Since I am left handed, I had to use the Wacom tablet on my left side. This sounds like it wouldn’t be a problem, but the issue is that the controls for various functions on the Wacom tablet were on the left side of the tablet. This meant that every time I put my hand on the tablet to try tracing something, the tablet would open up the settings menu. I eventually gave up on trying to avoid the controls and started tracing without my hand being on the tabet. One needs precision and accuracy in order to get small details and writing with one’s hand suspended in the air isn’t the best for that. This is more of a technical issue rather than a conceptual one though. I knew what I wanted right when we were given the assignment, so it was doable in that respect.