Symbolic Self

I went a little overboard with this assignment because I've been getting into pastels recently and wanted to do a whole series! I drew myself in different poses in various bright pastels and added the charcoal drawing to tie it together. While the figure drawings are drawings of myself, the face is not meant to look like me; the important part of that drawing are the tears that have the same color scheme as the figures.  Basically I wanted the figure drawings to reflect my inward thoughts, creativity, and personality being contained by my insecurities and outward appearance. The shape and definition are realistic but the colors obviously are not.
My inspiration for the color choices were thermal body images but I clearly branched out a little with the color limitations on that type of photography.  I wanted to make images that represented my physical body containing whats actually important and who I actually am. The charcoal drawing furthers this idea because the face lacks color, it is not important (or shouldn't be) but my inward thoughts and emotions spilling out in the form of tears should have the focus of the piece. Because I really struggle with insecurities about my appearance, I feel that these thoughts are damaging and a hindrance to my positive creativity and growth as an artist/student/friend etc. This was also a way for me to portray myself in a more positive light because while the dimensions may be accurate, I was able to make images like these that I would normally dislike and find beauty in them.

An artist I found that make similar images I used for inspiration was Helena Wierzbicki. Here are a few of her images: