(bright music) - My name is Evelyn Johnson and I am 18.

I am like a traditional artist.

I usually use mixed media.

I like to use, you know, like colored pencils, ink, markers, fabric, you know, embroidery, all of that stuff, paper, you know, I like to do like collages but like a lot of the time on like pretty large scale portraits.

(bright music) So a lot of my art are portraits of women, you know, I like to... And it's kind of a mix like you know, sometimes it will be like women from my family, some that I've personally known, some that I've only heard stories about.

Others will be more like women from history or like actresses or musicians or even like biblical figures.

In my portraits I like to do traditional like placement of the person.

And then I like to do very like detailed backgrounds with like a lot of different colors and shapes and stuff.

This is a book I have of just like smaller scale drawings.

This is from a couple years ago when I really started working on different, like portraits more and using some more mixed media, like this is paper and like paint and colored pencil.

(bright music) I recently finished a pretty large portrait of Rosemary Kennedy who is the sister to John F. Kennedy.

And I came across just like her story, like online about how when she was a young woman her father paid to have her receive a lobotomy because she was viewed as being too rebellious and too wild and they were worried she was gonna bring shame on their family and stuff.

And she was left handicapped from that, you know, she had to relearn how to walk, she could never like fully speak again.

So this was just a picture I found of her that was before this happened.

You know, it's a very, it is obviously a horrible story and the picture really like captured how like young and happy she was and it's just horrible to think about how completely unnecessary that was.

So I wanted to, you know, like kind of honor her with my portrait and just like think about her story, reflect on it and capture, you know, how she looked when she was young and happy and obviously didn't deserve any of that.

So this is my portrait I did of Rosemary Kennedy, John F. Kennedy's sister.

You know, I heard about her story online and stuff, you know, just from reading something and I thought it'd be fun to do, you know, a portrait capturing her in that time of her life.

I really tried to use a lot of different mixed media with this, you know, I have like three different kinds of fabric in here.

I also experimented some with like stamping on fabric and drawing on it, you know, I have some like visible stitching and stuff as well.

And this I also used some like crayons as well as like ink.

(gentle music) And then here I did a little stamp of her name.

(gentle music) The current series I'm working on is about, you know, my different ancestors, my different women ancestors specifically.

So I had this idea recently because my grandma just randomly sent me a picture of her grandmother on her wedding day.

She'd seen my portrait of Rosemary Kennedy, and she was like, oh, like I should send you some pictures of you know, your relatives from that era because you know, I told her that I thought like the hairstyles and dresses and stuff from that era, you know, were fun to draw and stuff.

Anyway, so she sent me the picture of her grandma and I decided to, you know, make a large scale portrait of that.

And then I really felt like inspired from that to learn more about other women from my family and make portraits of them.

So I now have two complete.

I have one I'm working on and I know for sure I'm gonna do another after that.

(bright music) Yeah, and then I really have been liking with my portraits I've been trying to include personal real documents from them.

So like my one picture has like a photocopy I made of a telegram that my grandma had of her mom's.

So I made copies of those and have that all in the background, which I thought was like a cool touch to have her handwriting in the background.

And they're really sweet letters.

They're like when she was dating her future husband, it's just really sweet hearing about her personal life too.

So this is a portrait I did of my great great grandma.

And in the background I made like photocopies of letters she wrote and then broke them up and put them in the back.

So that's like her actual handwriting.

I also have like a dress of hers that I, you know, can fit and stuff so that's cool.

I think it's really cool to just think about the women from my family and what their lives were like.

I really like the connection that this series has brought me with my grandma too.

'Cause I've asked her about, you know, these women who she actually had the chance to get to know personally and she's been able to tell me, you know, about their growing up, who they married, how many kids they had, stuff like that.

And then this is another picture in that series, this is my great grandma and this is a photocopy I made of a telegram she got sent on her wedding day.

So I thought that was pretty cool.

I thought, you know, I'd never seen what a telegram looked like and all these documents were provided to me from my grandma as she like told me the stories behind them.

(bright music) One of my biggest inspirations would be children's book illustrations.

I've always really liked the books on Madeline and I love the art style.

I like looking at those, you know, like pulling different like shapes I like or you know, like the way they drew tree or whatever from that.

And yeah, I definitely find that style of illustration really like inspiring and I love the color palette of that book too.

This piece is kind of inspired by the illustrations in the children's book "Madeline."

So like especially like the different like shapes for the tree and stuff and the different colors and like little lines.

I really like to do different like repetitive lines and very like loose lines, you know, in my work.

I think that, you know, I think that's just a fun look.

I like to do just a bunch of different just colors and patterns and stuff throughout my work.

(bright music) Today I am gonna work on one of my portraits in my female relative series.

So I'm gonna be working on a portrait of my great great great-grandma.

(bright music) This one doesn't have a big story behind it, but I mostly just wanted to like experiment with different combinations of mediums.

So I started off by doing, you know, her face with charcoal and I haven't worked in charcoal much so I thought that was just like kind of a fun thing to experiment with.

And then I added some fabric.

I wanted to have some very visible like embroidery, so I wanted to have like a color that really stood out on that.

So I picked orange and then I drew on it some with colored pencils.

(gentle music) My art journey I would say has definitely just been like throughout my entire life as I've grown older, it's just become more and more of a central part of my life.

(bright music) If I would go a long time without doing art, I definitely can feel it.

Like it's always like my goal to get back to, you know?

It's like I'm trying to get done with work so then I can get done with school so then I can, you know, finally draw in the evening and stuff.

Yeah, I definitely feel unfulfilled if I don't do it for a while.

And you know, it's just definitely my favorite thing to do, you know?

(bright music)