Though I’ve been doing art throughout this year, one of the main projects I focused my time on was this jacket.

I had this idea at the beginning of the school year. I had a leather jacket which I previously bought from Target, and because I bought it from Target it was very plain and boring on it’s own. I wanted to make it more interesting and better match my fashion sense, so I began coming up with ideas for how I wanted to paint it.

I made a couple of initial sketches for how I wanted to design it. I knew I wanted to have pride flags on the cuffs, partially because I thought it’d look cool, and partially so I could make jokes about my identity being so obviously that I was wearing it on my sleeve. Originally I wanted them to be rainbow flags, but then I realized that lesbian pride flags would fit the overall color scheme of red and pink much better.

For the back, I had several different elements I wanted to include. I came up with a design that included several things I liked: dragons, eyeballs, and mushrooms. None of it really had much deeper meaning, I just thought they all looked cool, both as separate and combined elements. I also included some blood dripping down from the eyeball, just for fun, and also so that people standing behind me in lines would get creeped out.

I also wanted to include a blood soaked rose on my chest, and at the time I was debating whether or not I wanted more eyeballs to appear on my collar.

I had documented my painting process on my instagram story. I started with the cuffs, which went smoothly, and then I began sketching my design on the back in chalk. After I had refined the chalk outlines, I painted over them in white, and then I filled in the space. After that, I first began adding color to the wings and eye. I reused some of the colors that I painted my cuffs with, and so the wings became a mix of pink and purple and the eye was a dark brown.

I then took a day or so off, and then came back to color in the mushrooms. I also did the same chalk paint outline process on the rose, but then got tired and left it as it was.

I then wore the jacket on Halloween and took several weeks off from this project.

I was debating what color I wanted the rose to be. I had initially wanted it pink, but after reconsidering I figured that a white rose dripping blood would look more dramatic. I then went back over the outline and began adding form to the rose with black and white paint. After that, I added the blood droplets.

At this point, I had considered my jacket pretty much done and took another break, but still felt that there was more that could be added, and that there was just a tad too much empty space. I wondered about painting the sleeves, but figured the design would probably look too wrinkled, and couldn’t come up with any good ideas regardless. I then returned to the collar idea, and decided adding some eyes would be fun. I also recently discovered a bag of googly eyes sitting in the depths of my art supply storage, so I thought it’d be funny to add some of them.

I glued smaller ones around the edge of my collar and two big ones right on my pockets. They made fun sounds when I moved and I liked them. I then began painting the outlines of eyeballs, this time skipping the chalk and going straight to the paint. After that I colored them in, adding some extra red around the edges to make them look bloodshot. I then wore it outside a couple of times, but found that the googly eyes kept falling off, and since I couldn’t be bothered to constantly reglue them I decided to do away with them.

And now, the jacket is (probably) finally done! In the future I may or may not add more to it, but I’m satisfied with it now. I consider the journey I went on with this jacket to be integral to my senior year, and I’m very pleased with the outcome. I’ve grown to love expressing myself in my clothes over quarantine, and adding my own artistic touch to one of my clothes has been extremely enjoyable.