NCHS Artists on self-portraits
Q & A with students in Drawing & Painting II and Advanced Studio Art
Ajzhane Champion ('20)
Q: How long have you been interested in art?
A: I've been interested in art forever; since I was three or five.
Q: Can you tell us a little bit about the inspiration for this piece?
A: I was in contrast on what colors I wanted to use to bring out the highlights in my face. So, I thought why not blue and purple because they are perfect and I love those colors. It actually turned out really well.
Q: Is this something you would like to do for a career or is it more of a hobby for you?
A: Both actually, this is what I want to major in.
Q: What did you take away from this project?
A: How to use different colors and put them together. They don't exactly have to be the same.
Kailee Milden ('21)
Q: How long have you been interested in art?
A: Since around seventh grade.
Q: What inspired your artistic choices for this piece?
A: Everyone was doing really dramatic things, but I wanted to give off more of a friendly vibe.
Q: Is this something you would like to do for a career or is it more of a hobby for you?
A: I would love to become some type of illustrator or in animation if possible.
Q: What did you take away from this project?
A: Charcoal is very difficult, but it was a really nice experience because I usually don't do realistic stuff. So, it was really nice to learn about that.
Kate Klingbeil ('21)
Q: How long have you been interested in art?
A: Since I was about six years old.
Q: What inspired your artistic choices for this piece?
A: I chose the colors based off of what I remember seeing last year. I saw this really cool pink one, but I didn't want to copy that so I just did purple.
Q: Is this something you would like to do as a career or is it more of a hobby for you?
A: I really like it, but I think it's more of a hobby.
Q: What did you take away from this project?
A: I like doing realism, but also not super realistic. I liked the weird colors.
Megan Fulton ('20)
Q: How long have you been interested in art?
A: Ever since I was little.
Q: What inspired your artistic choices for this piece?
A: I wanted it to have a very dramatic feel, kind of like one of those horror movie shots. A dark shadow, very ominous.
Q: Is this something you would like to do as a career or is it more of a hobby for you?
A: I plan on going into graphic design.
Q: What did you take away from this project?
A: Definitely working with proportions has been the biggest thing for this one.
Natalie Malloy ('21)
Q: How long have you been interested in art?
A: Since I was in elementary school.
Q: What inspired your artistic choices for this piece?
A: I chose warm colors because I really like the color scheme. I thought it would be really easy to work with. I chose that pose because I wanted to show off my hair a bit, since I had straightened it. I wanted to try to be a little more abstract and go more out of my comfort zone in art by using multiple colors to blend instead of just a black and white picture.
Q: Is this something you would like to do as a career or is it more of a hobby for you?
A: It's more of a hobby for me.
Q: What did you take away from this project?
A: It's always fun to go and try something you're new to because you don't really know if you're going to like it, I really liked working with the chalk pastels.
Rylee Schaafsma ('20)
Q: How long have you been interested in art?
A: I've been doing art ever since I was a little kid.
Q: What inspired your artistic choices for this piece?
A: I knew I wanted to do something with dramatic lighting so I scrolled through my Snapchat pictures and came across this one.
Q: Is this something you would like to do as a career or is it more of a hobby for you?
A: I plan to major in Interior Design, which is an art related career.
Q: What did you take away from this project?
A: It's much easier to do portraits in reverse. It was kind of a weird project because you're used to drawing with pencil and starting from a white sheet of paper, but we started with full black and erased the highlights and it was much easier than starting from scratch.
