Statement
I like to joke that Adobe Illustrator is my best friend. I feel like I’ve already known her for the better part of my life, and in some ways, I know her better than I do my real friends or even family members. It all started a year ago, when our Editor-in-Chief told us we’d be transitioning from downloading Vecteezy graphics to drawing our own from scratch in Illustrator. As soon as I opened the application for the first time, I was in love. There were so many tools at my disposal, and while I didn’t know how to use most of them to their full potential yet, I knew the creative possibilities were endless. I spent every free moment that summer self-learning these tools. By the beginning of the school year, I was itching to put my newly acquired skills to use.
Every illustration assignment I received for The Messenger was a challenge to improve as an artist and an opportunity to further explore Illustrator. While drawing “White Privilege,” I finally learned how to use all the functions of layers, a tool that had previously confused me due to its complexity. Layers would end up saving me much time in the long run by providing me with a way to manage all the elements of my artwork more conveniently in the future. To create “Recruitment,” I ventured into the world of animation and used Adobe Premiere Pro for the first time. I also mastered the pen tool as I was working on this project, so I could leave the inferior (in my opinion) curvature tool behind once and for all. “Northview Lunch: The Breakdown” caused me to try my hand drawing without a reference picture; in the past I had always relied on photos I had taken myself or found online. While creating the “Rise in Anti-Asian Racism,” I attempted to give my art a more serious feel to match the tone of the article (my previous graphics were more cartoony).
I would spend hours upon hours brainstorming the best way to illustrate the concepts in an article, tweaking the smallest details in my art, and asking my colleagues in The Messenger to offer feedback or choose their favorite out of several versions of my graphic, often forgetting to eat and sleep. It took me a long time, longer than I’d like to admit, to finish any illustration, mainly because I never knew when to call a piece ‘complete.’ There was always something I didn’t like, something I had to change. My parents frequently nagged me to spend my time more productively instead of “wasting” time on art to no avail; once I’d caught the art bug, there was no going back.
Sometimes, though, I do reflect on all the time and energy I have devoted to my craft. I ask myself: were all those late nights and early mornings spent perfecting illustrations worth it? While some people tell me that only the artist notices the small details or flaws in their art, I like to think that they were. I like to think that every minor improvement I made in an illustration contributed to its overall quality and made a difference in determining whether a viewer kept scrolling or came back for a second glance. I like to think that of all the art I’ve created for The Messenger this year, at least one piece touched someone’s soul somehow and made them reflect on the world around us.
Every illustration assignment I received for The Messenger was a challenge to improve as an artist and an opportunity to further explore Illustrator. While drawing “White Privilege,” I finally learned how to use all the functions of layers, a tool that had previously confused me due to its complexity. Layers would end up saving me much time in the long run by providing me with a way to manage all the elements of my artwork more conveniently in the future. To create “Recruitment,” I ventured into the world of animation and used Adobe Premiere Pro for the first time. I also mastered the pen tool as I was working on this project, so I could leave the inferior (in my opinion) curvature tool behind once and for all. “Northview Lunch: The Breakdown” caused me to try my hand drawing without a reference picture; in the past I had always relied on photos I had taken myself or found online. While creating the “Rise in Anti-Asian Racism,” I attempted to give my art a more serious feel to match the tone of the article (my previous graphics were more cartoony).
I would spend hours upon hours brainstorming the best way to illustrate the concepts in an article, tweaking the smallest details in my art, and asking my colleagues in The Messenger to offer feedback or choose their favorite out of several versions of my graphic, often forgetting to eat and sleep. It took me a long time, longer than I’d like to admit, to finish any illustration, mainly because I never knew when to call a piece ‘complete.’ There was always something I didn’t like, something I had to change. My parents frequently nagged me to spend my time more productively instead of “wasting” time on art to no avail; once I’d caught the art bug, there was no going back.
Sometimes, though, I do reflect on all the time and energy I have devoted to my craft. I ask myself: were all those late nights and early mornings spent perfecting illustrations worth it? While some people tell me that only the artist notices the small details or flaws in their art, I like to think that they were. I like to think that every minor improvement I made in an illustration contributed to its overall quality and made a difference in determining whether a viewer kept scrolling or came back for a second glance. I like to think that of all the art I’ve created for The Messenger this year, at least one piece touched someone’s soul somehow and made them reflect on the world around us.