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Miscounting Stars: A Junior Self-Portrait Illustration by Cindy Nguyen (2012)

My illustration's inspiration came from the keywords ''clumsy'' and ''losing something.'' The fallen star symbolizes clumsiness. It was once a shooting star, but fell from the sky as it went off course and landed on earth. The telescope is used to take a closer look of space, and also to find shooting stars and meteorites. The downside of a telescope is its incredibly limited range of vision. While searching for shooting stars, the telescope couldn't see that what it had been searching for was right beside it. Both the telescope and star shared the trait of clumsiness, and as a result, both lost what was important to them: the fulfillment of their purpose.

I wanted to express the idea through a great depth of view in order to emphasize the scenery. A clear, nighttime setting is the perfect atmosphere for stargazing with a telescope on a grassy hill and can even be considered beautiful. I broke away from the rule of thirds, with the telescope more in the center. By having it looking for something so specific, it makes it easy to miss what's on the ground below, no matter how close it is to the telescope: the fallen star. It was for that reason why I broke the rule of thirds and went with having what should be most focused in the center, with the telescope and star sharing the spotlight. The illustration is done solely on Adobe Illustrator, where I utilized the line tool to create straight lines and the brush tool to freehand everything else involved in the picture.
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