A Summer 2014 project, "Flower Girls" was an experience that challenged me. Sure, maybe some can view it as "placing flower petals on a piece of paper and drawing a head," but for me it was an eye-opening learning experience. It's one of those projects that keep me up at nights and lodged its way to my everyday thoughts as I passionately continued picking leaves and doodling every night. It was something I looked forward to at work everyday, a happy escape of creativity. 

Through this project I exposed myself to nature, something I've never really observed as I loved being indoors in my own world. Having to find and pick flowers encouraged me not just to walk more, but to really pay attention to what I'm walking past. I found myself stopping on the sidewalk, reaching through a metal fence to pull at a long weed sticking out of a bush. I walked, gazed away from my phone and instead staring at the colors and shapes of trees. 

I noticed a flower's ethereal beauty. By limiting myself with only the shapes and colors nature provides, I trained myself to think fast from a compositional perspective. Plants are living things, and shrivel up as soon as they're pulled apart from their roots and water source. The vivid pink petals are only alive for a mere moment before they lose their shape.

I'd pick a leaf off the ground, stare at it, touch its texture, examine its depth, and envision it as part of something bigger. I had the opportunity to turn something ordinary into something noticeable. Five littles leaves can shape a ball gown, giving color, life, and form to a drawing. I got creative with fashion and invented my own capes made of interestingly-shaped leaves. Complementing the idea of manmade fashion with the nature of the outdoors, I transformed two-dimensional illustrations into living works of art.