Bailey Whitney ’15 pursues art

Bailey+Whitney+15+pursues+art

Claire Bentley, Arts & Trends Editor

Q: Tell me about your portrait. Who did you choose to portray and why? What medias did you use to create it?

A: I did Neil Gaiman who is an author, he’s the one who wrote “Coraline,” which is probably his most well-known work. But for this I used his book “Neverwhere.” For the portrait I cut each line out of the book and molded the paper to the shape of his face. I used acrylic paint for his eyes and his lips and India ink for his hair and I used charcoal for all of the shading.

Q: How long did it take you to finish?

A: It took me over a month; I started it a long time ago in my mixed media class and spend many lunch hours and weekends working on it.

Q: You posted your portrait online, what happened with that?

A: So I posted it to my Tumblr and it directed to his official Tumblr. He ended up seeing it and re-blogged it commenting “woah.” It now has over 1500 notes, which isn’t too much but definitely way more that I had expected. The whole thing has come with a bunch of different surprises, which has been fun.

Q: Do you have a favorite type of art or artist?

A: To be honest, I’m not sure if I have a favorite artist or a favorite style or medium. I really love how beautiful Monet and Van Gogh’s work is and to study the brush strokes. Frida (Kahlo) is always a favorite. Jack Davidson’s portraits are really beautiful and distorted and almost supernatural. I also really like Egon Schiele’s paintings, they’re also very twisted, and I guess I like twisted things.

Q: How long have you been doing art? Is it something you would continue in college and/or in your adult life?

A: I’ve been doing art pretty much all of my life because my mom was a graphic designer and my dad is an architect. I really started to draw heavily in about seventh grade because that’s what my friends were into and I got really into it and kept doing it. Once I came to Whitney and started in Exploring Art, I realized that I was good at it. I want to study it in college but I don’t want to go to a conservatory art program. I have a lot of more interests, like psychology. I would like to study it, but not necessarily be constrained.