What do you see?: A Junior Self-Portrait Illustration by Christopher Ogaz (2013)

In this Illustration I decided to draw a balloon and a puddle with a broken/ popped balloon to symbolize the concept of ''reflections'' in my personal essay. In my essay, I describe my feelings when I self-reflect. Sometimes I see myself as I really am, but sometimes I don’t. This might be because I can be too hard on myself. It is still quite a difficult thing to figure out, but that is the mystery with reflections.

I use a balloon to symbolize a person reflecting, in order for it to be clear that I was trying to depict the balloon reflecting in a puddle, because the closest thing to a mirror is a puddle. The lighting and the water are one, and you can see a clear reflection that shows every detail of the face. I have a popped balloon in the puddle to represent what the balloon sees, even though balloons are normally associated with happiness until it pops. The reflection the balloon sees is wrong. These problems that can lead to many negative consequences.