Best Friends 

By: Kayla Siegfried 

Growing up I believed that we could only have one best friend, and I had that. She wasn’t only a best friend she was like another sister to me. Knowing how we met, how much older than me she was, even her birthday didn’t matter I had a friend that I could share everything with and spend all my time with without getting annoyed. The best part about our friendship was that we were young and innocent. Other than my actual family she was the most important person ever to me. 

All that changed on my 7th  birthday. We hadn’t been talking much that day other than her coming to say happy birthday to me before we parted to go to school. After school I was headed to go camping so I wouldn’t see her till I got home. Little did I know, after that moment I would never see her again. After she came home from school she got on her bike to go to another friend’s house for a play date. A couple blocks down the road there was a terrible accident. My parents never picked me up early from the sitters that day so I knew something was wrong. When they finally picked me up we went straight to my grandmas instead of home to get the trailer. When they told me the news I didn’t want to believe it. 

For months until we moved out of that neighborhood I would continue to visit her family, play in the sand pit or in the fort in the trees. I guess it was my way of coming to understanding with everything. Soon I found other friends at school and became really close with them and I still continue to be close with them. What I can say is a good thing that came from this all is that we have a day to celebrate together, forever. 

Memories In My Skin Reflection 

Kayla Siegfried 

TECHNICAL: Technical wise i think this project really allowed for me to learn how to us photoshop as i have never used it before especially adobe photoshop cc. Thought this project i really learned and developed skills like using brushes, eraser, feathering, layer blending, actions, magic wand tool and the quick selection tool. I also learned how to change to hue/saturation of a picture to fit a specific colour scheme as well as how the change the opacity to change how some picture show up. 

IDEA: My idea was to express my emotions on one of the most traumatic days of my life. the original piece i was working on was all bright and happy and resembling the fact of my best friend going to heaven but then I later changed that idea because I knew the idea was supposed to show my emotions on that day and by no means was i happy in any way, I had lost a family member, my best fried. Thats when I took a fresh start and began to show my emotions of that day and the picture wound up dark a dreary, my art so far has shown up to be a lot of dark and dreary pieces but i promise I'm not actually a dark person like that. 

INFLUENCES: Working on this piece no particular artist influenced me since i am not familiar with any artists except for the group of seven and I don't recall ever seeing one of their pieces of art. I am by no means an art student this is my first time taking a art class ever so i am new to all artists, techniques, rules etc. 

COMPOSITION: In my photo montage i tried to balance the the composition by having pictures that are not all the same size and have no relevance to one another. I also think a key point i tried to have in my art is i wanted to follow a colour scheme, the same few colours can be seen all thought the photo but most photos on the montage are not clearly seen. The photos i want to be seen i tried to make more visually appealing than the ones that still had significance but were as important. In all honesty i think my attempts to have my photos set up in a way that would make your eyes move around the picture was un- successful. I found this project to be very hard for someone like me who has never taken art before and who has also never used photoshop before so in my opinion my project was terrible for a first project but i how to make it up and have more of a creative mind for out upcoming projects. 

MOTIVATION: My motivation to do this piece was really quite simple, i have been thinking a lot about my significant life event lately and being giving this project was the perfect way to put my feelings onto paper and to show my emotions with having people think it was out of the ordinary to have just brought it up now what it happened almost 10 years ago. This project was a way for me to honour her in a way that i never really could until now when I'm old enough and can understand more. Again would have liked it to be something that i personally liked better so i could show her family but still happy with the fact that this project really let me honour her name and think about what happened that day. 

CRITICAL ASSESMENT: In my photo montage I personally think that the most  surprising element at a first glimpse would be the children bike or the giant eye ball. however i think the most successful parts of it are the two girls( the face in the background and the girl standing “sad”). Something that surprised me about making this project was again how hard it was! I wool have never thought that making something like this would be so hard but it really y was and i found myself overthinking a lot of aspects and being very critical of myself. If i had any extra time i would probably totally redo my project and make if still have the same theme of how sad and upset i was when it all happened but have something anything that would bring the colour up more i have a strong disliking for how dark my piece is, i almost feel like its so dull it could dissolve and disappear.