Fragments

Author/Artist Name

Addison E. Miller, Murray State UniversityFollow

Files

Academic Level at Time of Creation

Senior

Date of Creation

Winter 12-10-2025

Artist Statement

Plants have cultural, spiritual and medicinal importance. Artists have long been inspired by the beauty of flowers, but how do we determine what’s considered a flower and what’s considered a weed? In the series “Beyond the Evergreen”, I create characters based on the environment around me, specifically, the plants and animals in my own backyard. I illustrate species which are often considered a nuisance, elevating their importance and honoring their ecological importance. My work created, develops their personalities, and explains how they interact with each other in their ever-changing world. tells the stories of the characters I have created and give my audience a glimpse into my character’s personalities and how they relate and interact with each other in their ever-changing world.

When it comes to my style of drawing, I am heavily inspired by the works of E.H. Shepard (the illustrator of the Winnie the Pooh books) and Beatrix Potter (the writer and illustrator of Peter Rabbit). Both artists' works focus on giving anthropomorphic traits to animals or other various objects. Though these artists have quite a considerable influence on my work, my style is also reminiscent of the works of Kiana Khansmith, Dana Terrace, and Alex Hirsh. All three of these artists have illustrative styles of drawing. These artists use shape to their advantage when it comes to character design, with their bubbly characters having rounder features and their more serious characters having sharper features throughout their design.

My process starts in my current sketchbook. Sometimes characters get reimagined from an earlier time in my life, the ones that I feel I could improve upon. Most character designs change over the course of time. When I am satisfied with the design of the character, they are ready to be incorporated into the story, character personalities may be inspired by a real person or be based on appearance.

I work mainly with COPIC or Huhu markers on Bristol paper. This is my chosen medium because of the smooth and easy blending of the materials. This makes it possible for me to achieve the look I am trying to achieve. Recently, I have been incorporating colored pencils and gouache into my work as well. Typically, the colored pencils and gouache are used to color the background, which serves to make the characters pop more than a marker-on-marker look would.

Overall, the central theme of my story is community. Multiple installments of “Beyond the Evergreen” include characters that are different in appearance, age, gender, and social status all of them not only coexist, but together they thrive and become friends. In the future, I plan to continue developing this story. I can see it potentially becoming a series of children’s books.

Advisor/Mentor

April Webb, Lu Colby

Description

My body of work revolves around the characters and stories I have developed over the last few years, while studying at Murray State. These characters are simply based on weeds commonly found in my backyard. The central theme of my work is community. I enjoy creating many different characters, who live very different lives and despite adversity, they come together to create harmony. With many of my drawings being centered around my characters, my work is mainly focused on the figures. The elements and principles most prevalent in my work are shape, color, and line. The tools I use to make each piece are alcohol markers to color the characters and gouache for the background, with colored pencils to add texture and harsher shadows. My portion of the exhibition was displayed in the balcony space on the left side of the 7th floor of the Clara Eagle Gallery. I shared the space with another artist, and we enjoyed the contrast of our works. I displayed four works in the exhibition, three of which were 20x24 inches and depicted various scenes, which all included my characters. The fourth piece included in my section was a 9x12 comic book, bound with twine and sitting on a pedestal placed in the middle of the wall, which separated my section from the other artist’s section. My favorite part of the show was getting to work with so many different artists. Our work was so varied; we chose to call our show “Fragments”.

Photo Credit

I took photos of my work

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Recommended Citation

Miller, Addison E., "Fragments" (2025). B.A./B.S. Practicum Group Exhibit (ART 499). 84.
https://digitalcommons.murraystate.edu/art499/84