Cherished.
senior BFA project, 2020-2021
6 month assignment. student lead personal project encompassing our final year. deliverable outcome decided by student along with a required book chronicling the process.
Deciding what to do for my senior thesis took some time but I came to create a short illustrated book illustrating the importance of gratitude that could be for both children and adults. The illustrations were done in gouache and colored pencil. The type is hand done.
What is Cherished. all about?
The book is 32 pages and contains an illustrated list of 30 things that I am personally grateful for. The list is prefaced with an introduction explaining how I came to this topic for my thesis. Essentially my time in quarantine had an understandably negative effect on my outlook and I practiced moments of gratitude to cope. I wanted to share my findings with others through this book.
The simple illustrations with an endearing albeit featureless figure are there as a canvas for you to insert yourself. I hope that with each image the reader can recall a similar memory that brings with it a sense of gratitude. The practice of reliving 30 moments of gratitude will, I believe, set readers at ease and give them a more positive outlook on their current situation and maybe their future as well.
The process of Cherished.
Creating Cherished. took many stages of ideation and many losses of my sanity. It took me a long time to come up with atopic I could create around that I felt passionate enough about and could work on for 6 months. When I finally did land on gratitude the next big question was how did I want to illustrate my ideas to an audience. That stage was mainly encompassed by experimentation. I tried different mediums, different characters and different deliverables- did I want to create a narrative? Or did I want no text at all?
timeline of my final weeks creating Cherished.
early sketches and story panels
experimenting with different mediums and color palettes