"Nevertheless she persisted" // tombow dual brush pen, shade 565.
I’m all about women’s empowerment and feminism, and I wanted to showcase that in this piece. It’s a delicate writing, but it’s a very powerful message. Women are often thought to be fragile things but we are often more than frail beings.
"Colorful heels" // prismacolor pencils.
I always thought that the shape of stilettos were beautiful but they are a pain to wear. I wanted to emphasize form and play around with color to create this piece, and I think it turned out how I would have wanted it to. I like how prismacolors blend so well together, and I also like the contrast of colors in this piece.
"Stand tall" // acrylic.
I’m not your average 5-foot brown girl; I’m 5’7” which means that most people always like to comment on how tall I am. My sister always compares me to a giraffe because both the giraffe and I are tall and skinny. It’s always been an inside joke of mine so I made this piece poking fun at this joke.
"Never stop looking up." // watercolor.
Finals are super stressful to the point where you feel like you don’t have time to breathe. I created this piece right after finals and just let the water flow easily all over the paper. After a tough semester, I needed a reminder that everything was going to get better from here.
"M&M's in a car" // prismacolor pencils.
My freshman year of high school I took a drawing class with this lady who was kind of weird, but I learned a lot from her. She always critiqued her students over how we should change up the angle, lighting, shading, etc. This was one of the first pieces that really made both her and me proud. It made me realize that my style isn’t necessarily photorealism like the rest of the class, but more of a cartoon-like style.
"Girl on a beach" // watercolor.
In my painting class my junior year, my teacher assigned us a project where we would collaborate with other students from an English class and translate their poems into paintings. The poem I was assigned was talking about islands, but I wanted to place focus on the person looking at the islands. I was worried about this piece because I had played with watercolor only a handful of times. Although this was a step outside of my comfort zone, it was still a fun painting. Painting has always been my escape and it was fun messing with different techniques to paint a bit of a paradise for me.
"Nihaal" // photography.
This was one of my first photos that got me started in photography. My extended family and I all went to our neighborhood park while I went with the intent of snapping several photographs of everyone. This photo is of my cousin, Nihaal, who is the second youngest one of our batch and I love him to death. He’s looking down one of the bright, blue park slides, but with the editing it looks like he’s looking into another dimension. I wanted to show that everyone’s future is bright and also play on everyone’s imagination.
Mayher is a student majoring in Software Engineering at the University of Texas at Dallas.