Greetings, fair reader!
My name is Hannah, and I am a visual artist and twelfth grade student enrolled in MBCI’s Studio program.
I love various forms of painting, such as watercolour or acrylic, but my favourite medium is oil paint. This semester, I am challenging myself to produce a series of realistic portrait oil paintings.
Growing up, I constantly found myself doodling on every school assignment, drawing and writing my own cartoons, and illustrating for stories my friends wrote. However, it wasn’t until distance learning in 2020 where this casual pastime developed into a passion that began to occupy the majority of my free time. I started following Bob Ross tutorials whenever possible, including during Zoom classes (sorry teachers!). I truly fell in love with landscape painting, using only cheap, watery acrylic paints and Dollarama canvases.
Painting became something I looked forward to every day during distance learning. Unfortunately, once in-person school and social activities began to pick up, evenings were once again consumed by volleyball practices, music lessons, and homework. This creative outlet that had previously brought so much joy was no longer something I had the time to prioritize.
I came back to painting during a time when I was feeling extremely trapped. I had allowed myself to get to a point where I felt completely out of control of my own life. Bringing painting back into my life once again allowed the creation of worlds completely within my own creative freedom. Art for me is not only fun, but it is also therapeutic, freeing, challenging, rewarding, and exciting.
I see Studio this semester is an opportunity for me to make space for painting to be a priority again. I have begun to explore portrait painting recently, challenging my skin tone mixing abilities and brush techniques. I am so excited to spend more time working on this passion of mine and developing my artistic skills.
If you’re interested in watching my progress, check out my blog below!
“You can do anything you want to do. This is your world.” – Bob Ross
