I needed a cover image for what was actually a publication project. My final in the class was to make a hand-bound book about whatever we wanted; I chose to make an autobiography of sorts describing my journey through learning to illustrate. I decided to create this piece as a full cover bleed to summarize my feelings about this topic and how I've overcome so much to get to this point.

In all honesty, I just started drawing. I wanted to convey emotion first and foremost, so I chose colors indicative to how I was feeling, and I composed it in a long, reaching spread to sort of encompass the journey I had taken. Other than that, the drawing just came out on its own, which in itself was an important step in the creative process. If I had planned too much, it would have come out more robotic and sterile. I called it Epic because that's how I would summarize my dreams and aspirations, and this image is a literal representation of that.

I am quite pleased with this work. Perhaps everyone won't understand it, but that's alright. I made it for a project about me and my experience, so what matters most is that it conveys exactly what it meant to me. The looking back on the vast expanse of my life to get to where I am now and to show where I will go, the dreamlike palette, etc all is representative of myself, so I think I succeeded. Likewise, so far I haven't had any confusion with people who have read through my publication; the image makes sense, it's pretty to look at, and it overall solves the problem I set out to solve while also adding a nice original work to my portfolio.