Project #4

As a woman, it feels like you're constantly being watched. On the train, walking downtown, in your car... I based this piece on the fear of looking toward the eyes, unsure if anyone is even looking in your direction in the first place.

My sketch was initially on a piece of math homework, but as I developed the piece, it inspired a certain emotion in me. In public, I always feel like eyes are on me. I can feel people looking at me, yet I'm too anxious to look toward the eyes. I'm unsure if these stares are even real, but when you're a woman walking down your street alone, you can't help but feel anxious.

I decided to redo the sketch digitally since I wanted to ink the sketch and add color underneath, and shade by inking the shading first before using a cell layer ontop to color the ink. This is the inked piece, with the hair expanding to reveal eye shapes.

I added color in this part of the piece and also added some color ontop of the inked piece. I realized that I needed to render a bit more at this stage of the piece.

I rendered the piece a bit more here. I added some outlines to the face shape, nose, and eyelashes, as well as more color to the lips. I also added some shine to the hair to make her hair shape more prominent.

The final piece was 4030px by 2760px. This piece relates to my inquiry question through the idea that women are supposed to dress up nicely in a capitalistic society, shown through the women's prominent eyelashes and dark red lips, but when women go outside, they are stared at and feel unsafe and watched. This feeling is based on walking downtown and feeling watched, usually by older men, and feeling unsafe. The eyes are supposed to be more suttle to show that while the eyes feel like they are watching the woman, the woman doesn't want to catch their attention any more than she may have already, so she doesn't look back.

I did this piece digitally so I could practice inking and a more sketch-like type of style, since the feeling of the piece is supposed to feel scattered and unsafe. I wanted to use semi-contrasting colors as well.