Portfolio Showcase

Keziah Paris | Traditional & Digital Art Collection

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Digital Portraiture

A digital portrait of my mum I drew for her birthday. The reference was from one of her wedding photos and the piece was created on the app Autodesk Sketchbook with a Wacom Bamboo tablet and stylus that I plug into my laptop.

The interesting parts of this piece is that certain parts of the original photo are edited within my drawing. For example: the bouquet of flowers is from the actual image but duplicated, blended with a “lens blur” brush and I used a “vegetation” brush to add more vibrantly coloured petals in blue and some extra foliage.

Painting this piece was so fun to experiment with all of the digital brushes and effects and well as playing with colour and lighting!

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Freedom of Expression: Final Piece

The final outcome of my Year 12 Freedom of Expression project. Inspired by the work of Alex Contreras, I wanted to create a piece that could communicate how sometimes what we express on the outside may not match how we feel really on the inside.

The reference for this piece was a photo of my friend, which I had edited on PicsArt. 

From the edit, I managed to produce an acrylic portrait (with some details over the top in watercolour pencil) of her split into two with a white string connecting her two “outer parts”. Her outer expression is rather difficult to depict - despite the words on her face reading “HAPPY”.

Coming out of her head is her “inner part”, which was inspired by a photo I had taken of the sun setting giving a more calm tone to the piece in watercolour for the background. The details of the trees were done in black fine liner and permanent marker.

I really enjoyed creating this piece as I could use a range of media as well as experiment with creating different effects/ texture with the use of acrylic painting techniques and colour.

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Paper Cut Animation

From the UCA Portfolio Bootcamp for Film and Animation in 2021, I created a short advertisement style animation just from images found in a newspaper!

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Life Drawing - Lighting Study

Another piece from one of my life drawing classes, showing a chalk and charcoal sketch describing highlights and shadows on the human figure as well as establishing perspective.

This piece was difficult as the key factor was trying to show that the model’s head was a greater distance away from where I was standing when compared to her feet and legs. I was advised to created the illusion of perspective on the page by including less detail on the features that were further away and using darker tones on the parts of the body that were closer to me.

Another issue that I overcame was tackling the tricky angle the model was lying at. For me, this position was difficult to draw (particularly the feet and hands!), but I still think I managed to execute the ideas of perspective and tones well in this piece.

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Life Drawing - Acrylic Study

An acrylic painting drawn over a longer period of time to create a full piece The central elements of this piece is the attention to colour, lighting and shadow. 

Towards the end of my life drawing course our focus was on putting what we had learnt from sketches in various media into practice with painting studies. The model stayed in this one pose for 35 minutes, allowing me to create a wash and finish my massing in monochrome, then I could add colour to build on the context and realism of the piece. 

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Super Short Animation - Digital Draft

I managed to start creating a digital copy of the sketches from my animation with the FlipaClip app and finished a small part of the beginning.

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Personal Investigation: Character Design - Ensi

A reference sheet describing the process of creating my comic’s protagonist. Shows the stages from sketches to experimentation with colour in order to achieve the final design.

As a part of my planning for a comic I created I decided to keep a sheet organising Ensi’s character design - which I could refer to if I ever needed to look back at when creating the final product. This was really helpful in the sense that it allowed me to recall the correct colours I used for the design, making the comic’s finish look flush and accurate.

I had fun experimenting with media and testing out different designs for Ensi’s clothing during this. The best part (and the most challenging!) was trying to ensure the fictional character resembled the real person in terms of appearance.

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Personal Investigation: Storyboard - Ensi’s Lighthouse

A storyboard about coping with the stress of ADHD from Ensi’s perspective. Taken from a mini project within my personal investigation: Stress and Coping Mechanisms.

Inspired by the ADHD Cosmic Takeover organised by Pina Varnel - a graphic novel artist known for creating comics related to her experiences with ADHD - I decided to create my own comic based on similar principles.

#cosmictakeover was an event that happened in October 2021 (during ADHD awareness month) on various social media platforms, including Twitter and Instagram, whereby numerous artists shared their experiences with the condition. When I first saw this, I didn’t just take it as an opportunity to attempt producing a comic, but to research and try to raise awareness for a condition that can be easily misinterpreted or stigmatised.

The storyboard reference came from an online “interview” with my friend, Ensi (the protagonist). I asked some questions about his personal experiences with ADHD, then through analysing the perspective of Ensi, I managed to use his real life story as a brief for my comic’s visuals.

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Large Scale Comic Preview

During 5 hours in exam style conditions, I created two pages of A3 comic sheets which presented the middle part of (the protagonist) Ensi’s full story about his experiences with ADHD.

From planning prior to the timed mock exam, I followed all of my reference and guide sheets that allowed me to complete my comic panels at a larger scale. For me, I think that I prefer my small scale version of this comic as it made overall composition appear nicer - the panels look fuller and complete.

With this version the watercolour paints feel a bit washed out in terms of the background, though the focus is still on the main elements of the panels coloured on alcoholic marker which was good.

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Original Fantasy Novel Cover

Drawn by hand in vibrant watercolours and gel pens and edited on Canva, I created my own title cover for a fantasy novel I was publishing on the site Webnovel - featuring the protagonist Ember.

This was drawn on size A3 watercolour paper and my main goal was to experiment with complimentary colours in order to create an interesting title for viewers to be allured by. It was a fun experience to draw with this scale as I’m more familiar with smaller works, but I think this piece is one of my personal favourites!