my teenage memoir vol. I

[youampersandme]

2001, eleven years old

Comments

[_inquirewithin_]

I enjoyed this thoroughly! Would die for that vanity plate sketch.

[youampersandme]

thank you! I could always get a print of that made if you're interested.

[manateematinee]

you are so amazing and always have been

[youampersandme]

gee shucks

[adam_0oo]

There is some great skill here, a great mixture of styles and art and graphic design.

[youampersandme]

thank you

[garconniere]

have you shared any of these before? some vaguely ring a bell, maybe shared in jrnal or whatever that livejournal community was... i love them. the use of colours on faces, so lovely.

[youampersandme]

yeah, I found a bunch of my journals I hadn't seen in years ( I already have a huge stack of all my journals and things) at my parent's house and took some pictures but I supplemented it with some of my favorites from that time period that were already on flickr. pretty much all of the smaller images had been posted before.
I definitely want to figure out my feelings on the topic enough to write sometime about how growing up not really knowing what ethnicity I was/ being perceived as as a person of color but also told I was white but also told I was native influenced the way I use color in skin tones.

[garconniere]

oooooooo i'll pick my brain and try and figure out where i've read about that before... my friend sves talked about it a lot, but not so much online...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/sves/sets/72157608004937388/

[youampersandme]

yeah, it's definitely something that I am always acutely aware of when creating skin tones. like, do I want this person to reflect my history and skin tone, and what do I perceive that as? which is where the greens and yellows come from, the actual colors I see when I look at my skin. Or do I want this to reflect the lovely poc or white people I hold dear? and whenever painting a self portrait in realistic colors the tone changes a million times, is this too dark, is this too light? what am I communicating of my feelings about race or my self image with this painting? jesus brain, shut up and just paint everyone blue.

[restingstate]

This is so good! I started looking through them and decided to come back later when I have more time to not rush through it all. Every time I consider ditching LJ all together, I remember people like you on my friends list and I stay.

[restingstate]

Now that I've looked at 'em all-- most excellent. Were you in the community jr__nal back in the day? I feel like I've seen some of these from a few years ago somewhere...

[youampersandme]

thank you and yeah I've posted some of these before and yes probably on jr__nal