Courtney Mesilas provided summaries of her art work from grades 9 through 12. She created paintings using acrylic paints depicting objects like cylinders, apples, oranges and diners. She also produced watercolor paintings of cherry blossoms, a woman, and watermelon lemonade. Additional works included drawings of mythical creatures, trees, and amusement parks done in colored pencils and charcoal. Sketches focused on human figures. Miscellaneous art included a tape sculpture of food items and whimsical paper cutouts.

1. Courtney Mesilas
Art Work
Grades: 9-12

2. PAINTINGS
The following paintings were created by me during my sophomore, junior
and senior year.
Each painting was made with acrylic paint.

3. “A Cylinder”
I particularly chose to paint this cylinder because of the way the light hits it and its “onion-like
shape”. This also happens to be my very first painting.
Grade: 10

4. “Apples & Pepper”
I chose to paint this because of the intricate bowl the apples rest in, as well as the very unique and
colorful shadows the pepper and bowl give off. The bowl was very time consuming and complex to
bring out every detail it had.
Grade: 10

5. “Oranges”
Similar to my “apples” piece, I chose this bowl of oranges because of the bowl as well as the way the
light hits the oranges to produce such vibrant, contrast in color in front of the dark blue wall.
Grade: 10

6. “Simple Diner Meal”
After visiting my local diner, I decided to take a few pictures and paint the meal I
ordered. In the painting you can see chicken fingers, a milkshake, and the booth I was
sitting in.
Grade: 12

7. “ ’Merican Diner”
At a different diner I visited, I decided to paint a picture of the sign that was
illuminated in the night.
Grade: 12

8. “Wine, Grapes & Peach”
I had to make many decisions and changes to this piece while painting it. Rather than having a green
bottle that blended too much with the curtain in the background, I decided to make the bottle a rosy-
”pinkish”, red. I also decided not to leave the curtains one solid color, and instead brought out their folds
to show how the light hits the satin curtains as well as the bottle. I chose not to include the tiny white
flowers that were on the curtains only because I felt it would make the painting look too busy.
Grade: 10

9. “A Blue Flower”
I chose a flower of my choice to paint and made it my own. Blue is a color rarely seen on flowers
therefore I chose a deep, cornflower-blue, accompanied by a bright orange background to bring out
a contrast in colors as well as the green center and tips to give it more depth and life.
Grade: 10

10. “Bob Marley”
There’s a very funny story behind this painting. A friend of mine had asked me to paint him a picture of
Bob Marley for himself but he was convinced I wouldn’t be able to do it. Determined to prove him
wrong, my friend allowed me to use her back as my canvas to paint this painting which surprisingly
took a little over an hour. (Unfortunately, I used acrylic paint which did not feel too good when it was
dry, or as it came off!)
Grade: 11

11. WATERCOLORS
The next few watercolors were made in my free time during my junior
year.
The watercolor paint I used was semi-moist.

12. “Japanese Cherry Blossoms”
This was my very first watercolor. I chose flowers because I figured they may be easier to paint.
However, I soon learned that there is a very tricky technique to watercolors; layers. It took me a
while to understand how quickly you need to paint and go over what you painted to make the
painting deeper in color and full of depth. This can be seen at the base of my painting as well as with
the flowers. The flowers were either a very light pink, close to white, or other shades of pinks. To
achieve the deeper shades, it required me to layer over the lighter flowers I had already painted.
Grade: 11

13. “Woman with Black Hair”
I decided to do a very simple watercolor of a woman’s head. I used very subtle colors such as grays,
black, light pinks and blues to give her more dimension and to make her look more dramatic in a
simplistic way.
Grade: 11

14. “Watermelon Lemonade & Kiwi
Sorbet”
Grade: 11

15. DRAWINGS
The following drawings were made during my free time using simple
colored pencils and charcoal.

16. “Lycanthrope”
The mythology of the lycanthrope has always fascinated me therefore I chose to base this drawing
off of that. I mainly used pencil, charcoal and other colored pencils to bring out the color of the fur. I
also included a full moon in the top left corner which is partially shrouded by a small line of clouds.
Grade: 11

17. “Tree of Life and Death”
An idea came to me about drawing a tree, however, I felt that drawing a plain tree was too boring
and some how I came up with this idea of a tree whose trunk formed the wrist of a hand while the
larger branches formed fingers. In some ways, I personified death as the hand by having a skull hang
from a rope as if this “Tree of Life” had Death wrapped around it’s finger. The hand was modeled
from my own.
Grade: 11

18. Cinderella’s Castle
The following drawings were made of pastel
and were part of an amusement park them.
Grade: 11

19. “Epcot”
Grade: 11

20. “Carnival”
Grade: 11

21. SKETCHES
The following sketches were made during my free time and mostly
consist of the human figure.

22. The Pelvic
Grade: 11

23. Figure Drawing #1
Grade: 12

24. Figure Drawing #2
Grade: 12

25. Figure Drawing #3
Grade: 12

26. Miscellaneous

27. “Picnic in the Park”
The following pictures are of the tape sculpture I made in my Art II class. The objects, a
banana, apple, orange, sandwich case, water bottle and tin chest, were first covered in
plastic wrap and covered with small pieces of tape to create a hard mold of the objects. I
later peeled out the objects and stuffed them with tissue paper to make it look realistic. This
sculpture was also submitted in the Off The Roll Tape Contest.
Grade: 11

28. “Peter Pan’s Flight”
“‘He can fly!’ said Wendy.”
Grade: 11

29. “✿”
For fun, I decided to make a little whimsical banner. I focused on the element of the line and cut
shapes out of pieces of paper. To make the banner more three dimensional, I cut thin pieces of
paper to stick the larger items on top to make it pop! After, I went over the objects with a little
light watercolor.
Grade: 11

30. “▼”
This is an abstract drawing I made using a blue, ballpoint pen and a blue
marker.