For this project, I knew I wanted to use an actual replica of a human skull and acquired one for free from my anatomy teacher. I wanted to represent everything that is going on in my head and I knew my abstract thoughts weren't going to be easy to recreate. A puzzle was the best representation as it shows how complex my thoughts can be and how completely abstract and unrelated they are, just how I like it. The puzzle also represents one completing themselves and mastering their own existence, completely figuring out their strengths and weaknesses and using them to their fullest potential. The different colors on the piece represent my different occurring thoughts.

     The Blue represents my sad thoughts and obvious sympathetic thoughts. The Black represents my darkest thoughts, and the part of my brain that is a bad place to turn to but inevitably is a part of our existence. The light blue represents good experiences that I keep as reminders for the future. The orange is hopes for the future and represents my ambitions as a young student as orange represents a sunrise. The green represents my hard work and progresses a person in general, showing growth like a plant. The red represents all the things I lost that I am fueled to gain back and change. The purple represents my creative instinct and is the most important part of me, one of the pieces that I value the most from my brain. Finally, the white is a mystery. It is the part of my brain that I still haven't figured out and m still finding a color for. It is vacant for now. I wanted the piece to resemble a brain's layout and puzzle did well in doing that, as it is all mixed up similarly to a brain. I also made sure to variate the amount of color in one area my thoughts are sporadic and aren't controlled in any way. Some colors I ensured to occur more than once such showing their importance and reoccurance over other thoughts. There is also a lot of white spaces as well, and that is something I am aware of and definitely working on in myself. 

     I had a few separate ideas for the design of the skull that I didn't end up doing. I was considering making it like a fresco of different abstract thoughts and just completely cover the top of the head like a mural. That was a literal represe=ntation of my mind, but I realized that may be too complex and simplicity is always better. I also considered separating the top of the skull from the face and plating a flower in the area where the brain should be, representing a beautiful mind in the most obvious way possible. This was however too simple and would have some functional issues after it was done as the cap wouldn't be put into use and would just be lying on the side, as well as the placement of the flower being awkward as there is too much space. I also considered painting a giant yellow arrow instead on the head pointing onwards representing change and moving forward. This was, however, a bad idea as it was a complete waste and wouldn't utilize the skull to its highest potential. I also considered attaching a canvas piece tot eh top of the skull and gesso it to make the painting process easier, but this, however, didn't need to be done as painting straight onto the skull didn't seem to be a problem.

     The making of this piece was generally very self-explanatory and simple. I first outline puzzle pieces onto the top cap of the skull, detaching it from the rest of the head. I went from eh bottom of the cap upwards, increasing the size of the pieces as I go. I then picked out my colors and started out with one color. I spread this color all around the piece making sure not to leave any space uncovered. I then went in with another color and did the same thing making sure to use the space wisely and usefully to have space for other colors and even out my use of the color. I continued to paint from bottom to top and combined some pieces that were too small.