• The subject of my image is that back then African-American women were criticized and downplayed for their big lips and wild hair, but now a lot of females who are not African-American try and copy this style. When they copy this style they seem to get more credit for it, like they originated it.

• The content of my image is "me" or what I would like to be in my natural stage.

• There were many choices that led me to my composition such as, my favorite colors, the natural process that I am going through, old society compared to contemporary society. How people see African American girls.. "big lips, and big hair"

• The process all started when I did my presentation a couple of weeks ago, and I stumbled upon this amazing artist Mickalene Thomas. Her works were mixtures of collages, acrylic paint, and rhinestones. She inspired me to mimic her work on my Final self portrait. I used acrylic paint and mimicked the whole big lips, and big hair thing. Everything comes into play in this final project such as my favorite colors, my inspiration, and what I'm going through.

• my work is a collage of different articles I cut out that I thought related to me or that would make my piece stand out.

• Mickalene Thomas is an artist that I learned about a couple of weeks ago but she had a huge impact on me and what I should do for my final assignment.

• I believe this image conveys a message that you should be who you are no matter what. Me personally, had to learn that the hard way. If you had a fat nose embrace it, curly hair embrace it, Don't try and criticize someone because they being themselves. and don't criticize someone because their trying to be different.

• The difference between my first self portrait and my last is that I am more confident on what I want to do in my last rather than my first. I had more information, more inspiration, and more encouragement.
• what influenced these changes were the artists I discovered, my own natural process that I am going through, my environment. being around my classmates gave me different perspectives on different things.