Height: 7" Width: 10" 
Master Artist: Albrecht Durer 
Current Artist: Proko 
Materials: Graphite and Mix Media paper
Ideas: I wanted to create a piece based on my struggle with dissociation, as it had a big impact on my life last school year (sophomore year). My main idea for this piece was to create a realistic drawing of myself in graphite, but also add a touch of surrealism to convey what it felt like to dissociate. I wanted a topic that I could portray a lot of feeling into, and for me, dissociation creates a sort of whirlwind of anxiety and hysteria but all muffled and far away. It's really based on the disconnection from everything around you, as if your consciousness disconnects from your body.  My mind is blank but at the same time, my subconscious emotions are going wild. Nothing feels real, It's like I'm in the ocean, floating further and further away from everything. My mind is escaping me, reality is on the surface, and I am floating further and further away from it in the oceans of my mind. 
Materials: I'm doing a full graphite portfolio this year, as I want to further push my skill development in the medium. I also chose my inquiry question and topic while deciding my materials because I feel like graphite creates intense energy and contrast, which is what I am looking for in my pieces. Since I am focusing my portfolio on deep emotional problems that I have experienced, the intensity of the graphite would help me achieve the level of emotional intensity that I want to see. I made a choice not to use color, even though it is a great way to portray a wide range of emotions, I feel like it would distract from the intensity I was feeling when the events I experienced transpired.
Process: For this piece, I was a bit stumped on what design I would do for the eyes. I had a solid idea of what I wanted it to portray (my mind slipping from me, see more info in my ideas paragraph), but I didn't know how to create it fully yet. Since I associate my dissociation with the ocean/water, I knew I wanted a flowy design to portray the feeling of floating away from reality/myself, so I did a few concept sketches to figure out what style I wanted to go with. I eventually decided on the waterdrop design for a few reasons. 1. I have always loved the way water drops have been used in cinematography, I have watched many films with slo-mo views of water drops splashing into water, creating an echo that reverberates as the water ripples. I have always thought that those types of scenes had so much intensity in them, it was very captivating to me. 2. Water drops coming out of my eyes are kind of a perfect way to portray the feeling of floating away from everything, even yourself.
*Link to water drop video*:  https://youtu.be/ynk4vJa-VaQ
I also really wanted to do a perspective that was visually interesting, so I played around with different concepts in my sketchbook to see which one was best. The difficult part of this piece was drawing my face with a blank expression that also had a lot of emotion behind it. I had to brainstorm for a while about what aspects of the face could portray shock kind of by themselves, and the one thing that stuck out to me was eyes, since usually, people's eyes widen when something surprising or shocking happens. After I figured out that I wanted to focus closely on my face, I took a few pictures of myself close up at different angles while trying to mimic a look of shock behind my eyes. I feel like the perspective of my final picture gives a slightly strange and uncomfortably close angle that kind of intensifies the wide-eyed stare. After I figured out all of the structural parts of my piece I started drawing it. I used the picture I took (I edited it to grayscale so I could get more accurate tones) The actual drawing part was a pretty smooth process, the only problem I faced was being uncertain about darkening my shadows, which is something I am going to try to focus on a bit more throughout my portfolio since I struggled with it on this piece. Overall, the process of creating this artwork helped me kind of understand what types of processes I will need to use in my upcoming pieces.