Artist Statement

This project was about creating three posters that would adverstise the 2023 MFA Thesis Exhibit for Digital Media and Design at UConn. The title of the exhibit was Breadcrumb Journeys and it featured two artists, Lexi Vecchio and Yungzhuo Liu, who both focused on some aspect of health: mental and physical. While creating my first poster I wanted to do something that would incorporate the physical health aspect, and the word Journeys. I decided to make it look like people were running on a road, and the words "Breadcrumb Journeys" would be on the road as well. Working on this poster made me realize that I wanted to create all three with a cartoonish style, using cartoonish drawings that I drew myself. The second poster I made is focused on more of the mental health aspect. I drew a brain inside of a head, and the brain is lifting dumbbells to show a struggle, but also strength and determination. The brain that I drew has very cartoonish features to fit my theme. My third poster took me a while to do. I didn't know what I wanted to draw and I had many different ideas that I ended up scrapping. My first idea for it would be a little loaf of bread running on a path, but I didn't ending doing that because it would've taken the "Breadcrumb Journeys" words too literally. I ended up using Yungzhuo Liu's dietary app to inspire me for this poster. I drew a large tree branch with the Breadcrumb Journeys words written inside and a cute cartoon strawberry, banana and cookie to sit or hang off the branch. I ended up using this poster to animate, having the cookie swing back and forth and the strawberry wave. I was originally going to animate my first poster so that the people running would actually be running, however, there were many issues with exporting and I ended up losing much of my poster that I had to redo. Overall, I am happy with how my posters and animation turned out, and I thought that using illustrator was very interesting.