My Creative Process
Inspiration
I still remember my first encounter with female rap. I was 13 years old and the song, "Va Va Voom" by Nicki Minaj, played over the radio in my mother's minivan. Prior to that, I had only been exposed to mostly mainstream Pop music. Fast forward to the present day and much of my music is comprised of female rappers. I have followed many of their careers and revisited the work of women who 'paved the way for modern female rap. However, I have observed the adversity these women have had to manage from all sorts of angles from then till now. Beyond their talent and skills, these women are resilient and empower the masses, and I for one think that should be celebrated.
Attention Management
I tried my best to adhere to the structured Workplan I initially developed and, generally, I was able to meet my own deadlines. The portraits are where I delegated most of my studio time and being persistent about facial details. While working on the portraits, I decided to simultaneously overlap my Interviews to gather responses for my "Testimonies" and inspiration for the pending backgrounds. Upon finishing all three portraits, I began to draft out ideas of potential backgrounds for each woman. When it comes to the goals I outlined in my Proposal, I think my work reflects how I was able to meet them.
Techniques
Watercolor
For Megan Thee Stallion's portrait, I used watercolor to develop the surrounding flame. This particular medium appealed to me because I was unfamiliar with it and eager to work with it. I thought watercolor was suitable, as it is a medium that could suggest the movement of flames with each stroke.
Collage
For Megan The Stallions portrait, I included two black stallions overlapping the flames and mirroring one another. Despite her name alluding to this artistic choice, I think the silhouettes were ideal, as I believe realistic images could possibly deter attention from the centerpiece.
Photoshop
This editing software was essential in the merging of portraits onto backgrounds, as well as refining and adjusting to improve the quality of the photographed work. I specifically employed the Object Selection Tool and Crop/Resize tools to maximize the displayed portraits.
Acrylic
Aside from charcoal, I am mildly comfortable with this medium. For the Nicki Minaj and Cardi B Portraits, I primarily used acrylic paint to curate their backgrounds. The Cardi B portrait, in particular, involved the mixing of primary colors to obtain the desired color 'teal'.
The Research
Literature review
Gathering secondary research via articles, interviews, and publications is a stark contrast from reading oversensationalized headlines in magazines. These sources offered perspective and insight supported by reasoning to address the writing objective that addressed my focus for this Capstone. Doing this allowed me to substantiate my own conclusions that complement the portraits I did. I believe the literature review best prepared me for my primary research endeavor.
Interviews
For the "Testimonies" included in this project, I used Interviewing as a primary research method to gather responses from four other individuals. For this procedure, there were no criteria for being selected to participate, only that the person had to be available to hold a documented conversation. I informed each interviewee that their responses would remain anonymous to avoid compromising their responses. My time goal was a 30-minute conversation to remain objectively focused, while allowing for thorough thoughts to be exchanged. Once I began a voice recording with my cell phone, I would initiate the conversation with one of the posed prompts on the "Testimonies" page. Following our interview, I would replay the recording to recollect and have embedded specific quotes from those interviews in this project.