Artist Statement

Hello! My name is Sadie Roy, and I am an art student at Clarkstown North High School set to graduate in 2026. Art for me truly explored ideas of sociology, personality, and the raw emotions of humanity. Art can be anything, and seeing how different people’s experiences and interests take form is fascinating. I find pieces depicting different communities and cultures and what its like from an inside perspective to be the most captivating. Personally, my favorite medium to use is pencil, whether that be graphite or colored. Including different moods and scenery is what I enjoy the most about my work. What proved to be the most challenging part of this class was the varied mediums I was tasked with using. While it expanded my horizons to the amazing qualities of certain materials, having to learn how they dry, blend, etc. was definitely a learning curve. My favorite piece to create this year was either the acrylic or portrait piece. Both allowed me to fully involve my personality and really create a story.

Reveal - Colored Pencil, 11" x 11"

Dynamics - Oil Paint, 10" x 8"

Empty Walk - Watercolor, 22" x 15"

Colored pencil is one of my favorite media to use, second to graphite, so creating an up-close observation piece with it was very exciting. I found that correctly replicating the reflections on the objects was challenging, but getting them accurate was more than gratifying.

At the time of this project, oil paint was a foreign medium to me. Learning how to apply color, blend, and manipulate the paint correctly taught me that experimenting with unfamiliar materials was not intimidating, and more explorative.

For a piece from observation, watercolor was a very fitting medium to use. Creating shadows and creating light in areas where it lied allowed for a more realistic end product.

Looks of Envy - Chalk Pastel, 24" x 19"

Head Over Heels - Acrylic Paint, 16" x 20"

By far the most challenging work this year was the pastel portrait. To begin, I wanted to create a scene in resemblance to Priscilla Presley in her depiction in the movie Priscilla. I adorned myself in a slightly similar fashion and put lace over my light source to emulate a wedding veil, and focused my attention in that direction to create drama. The next difficulty came with accurately transferring this using chalk pastel, which is regarded as one of the most messy and complicated mediums. It took multiple layers of pastel to create a cohesive piece, but I enjoyed this whole process and am now confident in my abilities to use it.

One of my favorite projects this year was this collage to acrylic piece. Putting together a whimsical and curious scene was very fun and allowed my creativity to take the reins. Acrylic enabled each part of the painting to have texture and show different reflections of light.

Extra credit oppurtunity

Moving in Elegance - Graphite, 12" x 18 “

Despite this piece not being a required project, this happened to be another one of my favorites to work on. I was able to incorporate different objects and form a picture involving many different textures, values, and movement. As complicated as it was to detail each light reflection and sharp edge, being able to do so purely off of sight is a moment of pride for me. This opened my abilities to adding multiple varying focal points in one piece.