A Closer Look at the AP Art Work of Lily Bielawski

Lily Bielawski attends Harborfields High School and is in LIHSA’s Visual Arts Program. Here’s what Lily shares about her AP Art Work:

My AP Art topic is exploring portraiture, and especially experimenting with different colors and palettes.  I mostly use colored pencils, but also markers for a base, and I am trying to use other mediums.

My art style is semi-realism.  I work from reference photos that I take. I mostly pose my friends or take pictures of myself and then enlarge them and print it out.

I try to make the pieces as photo realistic as possible but also put my own touch on them.  Some use the original color palette as the photo.  But other photos I convert to black & white and then create in my own colors. I love experimenting with color and like it to be colorful, rather than neutral colors.

AP art has been difficult. It’s my first year and I initially had a strong idea that I wanted to follow. But I drifted to a new topic and away from my original idea.

Also, using colored pencils is not quick process; each piece takes a while. So I hop between pieces I’m working on and it takes me a while to complete them.

I go off my own emotions and follow what my brain is telling me to do – that’s my greatest influence when I start a new piece.