Anxiety Monster

This piece started as a sketchbook project.  The prompt was "the concept of anxiety."  I thought, what does anxiety feel like?  It feels like a fat nasty monster squatting on your shoulders and scratching at your face, making you super tired but you can't close your eyes.  Anxiety feels like insomnia and panic and tension and like you're slowly oozing all your energy out of your ears and like you want to cry yourself to sleep but it's not allowed to be bedtime yet.  So that's what I drew.

sketch in colored pencil and Prismacolor markers

It's kind of creepy, and it makes me a little uncomfortable and a little scared, but hey, anxiety itself makes me a lot uncomfortable and a lot scared.  I accidentally made her (who is kind of me) look a little zombieish, which is not totally what I was going for... She's not dead yet, she just feels like she's on her way there.

I talked to Mrs Rossi and told her I wanted to make it a real project, and she told me mixed media would be cool.  And it just so happened that we were experimenting with visual journaling that week.

Best. idea. ever.  Thanks Mrs Rossi :))

eww.

So I started by printing off some pictures of rats and ROUSs (rodents of unusual size) and lizards and lizard feet as references and to kind of put some method in my madness.  Then I just started gluing stuff down.  I used tissue paper, wall paper, old patterns, newspaper, charcoal, paint... It was a lot of fun.  I just kind of kept on going.  At some point, though, I decided I didn't want to overdo it so I had to stop.
This by itself was cool and all, but it didn't really mean anything.  It's just a background.  So I looked in a mirror and drew a face, so I guess it's kind of a self-portrait, but I took a lot of liberties.  I also kind of forgot about my nose.  I don't really need that, do I? ;)  I watercolored the face and gave myself some oil pastel hair and glued myself down.

Um, on second thought, I think I do need a nose.

It's not done yet... I still have to do the monster.  Kind of the most important part.  I'll let you know how it turns out :)

Update: Just to clarify - This piece/post is a hyperbole of my feelings.  I'm fine, really :))