Oasis!

By Kayla Walford

To express my love for my family, in the strangest way possible.

Process

For this collection of portraits, I decided to use unassuming materials such as pencil and watercolor to help depict the delicate gentleness I wanted the portraits to hold. However, I also intended for my unsaid words to overflow on the paper, in such a way where my drawings could surpass realism—thus why I decided to depict my family members as mystical animals. My siblings are giraffes because they are growing so fast. The giraffe spots of my siblings reflect their personalities, my brother having more grounded symbols like trees and birds, while my sister took on more childish images such as butterflies and hearts. My mother was given a cheetah’s body and angel’s wings to exaggerate her love for running. My dad is an elephant to represent his grounding presence. Both my parents have hanging stars to show their expectations for my siblings and I to reach for the stars, and my siblings have stars imprinted on the skin because they achieved so.