My partner for this assignment was Sunny Choi.

Her three unique objects were her cat which

brings her hope and HAPPINESS, her drawing tablet where she discovered her new passion
and DREAM of movie special effects and editing, and lastly, her suitcase which represents her
love for traveling, new places, new experiences, and represents HOME and COMFORT.
Sunny’s three objects were greatly important to her and her journey to where she is now in her
life today. I was curious about Sunny and soon discovered we had many things in common and
that she was easy to relate to.

During the process of creating her portrait, I wrote out all my ideas and then I started to make
connections to her major symbols (the meaning she had towards her objects). I then wanted to
capture where HAPPINESS, DREAM, and HOME/COMFORT related to her. My aim was for her
objects to symbolize how her knowledge, memories, moments, thoughts, and dreams are
always a part of her mind. I wanted to incorporate Sunny’s love for the ocean and dark blue
colours which is why hues of blue are the majority of colours on the portrait. For her hues of
blue represented comfort; relating to home and to the ocean. My goal was to create a portrait
that showed what makes her uniquely her. An example of Sunny’s uniqueness is her preferred
colour choices. She likes dark colours such as dark shades of blue.

When thinking of what mediums and techniques to use, I wanted to incorporate new techniques
and mediums I have never used or done before. I wanted to take a risk and gain more
experience. Drawing a life like portrait with graphite pencils took me about six hours to
complete. This included studying multiple images for reference. All the time spent on the portrait
left little time to incorporate Sunny’s objects like I envisioned. I originally wanted to add smaller
objects surrounding Sunny’s three objects like butterflies around her cat, to represent
happiness. My hope was to use all my skills for her portrait. She deserved an amazing piece,
and I feel I may have let her down. I also wanted to take risks and discover new techniques and
skills such as drawing portraits. I had more than enough time to work on this piece, and I feel by
the end I was losing hours; where hours felt like minutes. I wasn't rushed, but I loved the
process I took that I didn't want it to end.
I also wished I could have used different mediums in my piece. I would have liked to have used
a real mirror on her tablet's screen to represent her dream of working in the movie industry and
illustrate a reflection of this dream. I also wish I had used a different way to capture the water. I
felt that it was flat and not three dimensional as I had hoped. I hope the piece is appreciated for
how much effort and thought I put into it. Despite spending many hours creating this portrait, I
enjoyed it very much and if I could, I would do it all over again.

I love the idea of giving an art piece to someone else. I am always looking for ways to connect
the piece I am making for someone to something they cherish or is important to them. For
instance,I made a ring for my mother and I designed it to relate to where we live and to
represent her love of the North Shore mountains. In this current piece, my hope was to
incorporate everything I learned and admired about Sunny. What I loved is that while creating
this portrait, I was always thinking about Sunny and what her response will be. I have to admit,
there was a part of me that was worried about disappointing her. I love giving my art to others. I
feel it is a way of giving back