Courtney Brewer

Artist statement:

I have always been a fan of fantasy and the power to put myself in a world different from mine. I loved that the books I read enabled me to feel as if I was this powerful character and I had a world full of adventure ahead of me. I wanted to create art that represented the power I felt when I read these books. This was a challenging idea for me to come up with and took many months to figure out exactly what I wanted to create to express this feeling of power and fantasy. Originally, I had tried to plan out a story and illustrate that on separate canvases, but after months of attempting this the story was just not coming alive. I decided it was time to try and move on and come up with a different idea. I came up with creating portraits as I was researching and stumbled across old portraits of kings and queens. I thought that it would be interesting to have my own characters be in this form as it is almost like a standstill in time for them. A pause in their story that has yet to be told.

I started with some sketches which were at first full body portraits and I disliked how each one kept turning out and was losing motivation. I finally decided to go with head and shoulder portraits as it gave me an opportunity to go into detail with the human face. I started with some sketches and liked how they were turning out. I then had to decide which fantasy idea I wanted to go for. I went with four women who have elemental abilities. These abilities are flame, frost, light, and darkness. I went with these elements as they are the polar opposite of each other and it was an idea I wanted to play with. The idea to use only women figures is that I always loved a strong female lead and wanted my characters to have that same theme. I wanted to be able to relate myself to my work and that is another reason I chose to do female characters.

My choice of medium for this project was to digitally illustrate these characters. I used the programs Procreate and Adobe Photoshop to create them. My goal was to make them seem like they had been physically painted rather than through a program. I kept this idea but still wanted to use some of the brushes and features offered in the programs to further my knowledge on how the programs work. I was able to play around and learn a lot about how Procreate functions and how it can help me with my art and design work. I was also able to learn more about how to create steadier lines with the Apple pen and how different brushes can create different effects.

This project both challenged me and made me excited about making art again, as I was able to create my own characters that represent my own little world. This enabled me to grow my illustration skills in a tremendous way. It enabled me to put everything I have learned together to create professional pieces of art and really improve my skills as an artist. It has prepared me for the professional world and for that I am forever grateful.