Artist Statement and Work

Jia Lin Li

Artist Statement

Throughout the four years I have spent at Boston Arts Academy, I have learned many things. As an artist I have learned how to perfect my craft, add value and composition to an art piece. My strengths as an artist lie in sculpture. When making sculptures I start with an idea and imagine the figures parts in my head. I rarely draw a sketch of what I want the sculpture to look like: instead I rely on my instincts, especially when it comes to sewing plushies. A plushie is a term for a plush doll.

My ideas for plushies come from everything around me. For example, when my class talked about segregation and racism, a little while later I created a giant plushie named Kana. Kana is a creature I designed called a Rooku. Rookus are born with the abilities to control plants and rocks. Their powers come from their claws and they are always born green with purple stripes. Kana however was born grey. When she was born she had her claws ripped out and her powers were taken away from her. She was then tossed away and left to die in the forest, simply because of her color. Kana’s story symbolizes the injustice of racism. She has a kind and gentle heart, but the others will never know because they tossed her away.

In the future I hope to spread my creations world wide through the Internet. I will do so by posting pictures and profiles of my creations on deviantArt. DeviantArt is a website where artists gather and share their artwork. I hope to be successful in the spread of my Plushie Universe and plushie domination.

Scans of my process work:

Art Homework

Okay so this is my art homework. We were told to do a 2 hour art peice on anything we wanted. I decided to do the line art for this picture I sketched out in August. These characters do NOT belong to me. This is fanart. Characters belong to ProjectUmbra, lian-ne, and RabiBear.

Rooku Plushie

Here are pictures of the plushie I made for the Plushie Project. Her name is Kana. I designed the character and species. She stands 2 feet and 3 inches.

Plushie Project

My project idea is to make plushies. I design the characters then sew them by hand. I chose to do this for my independent project because I felt that I am more passionate about creating fantasy related work rather than food related work. Each plushie is made by fabric that I hand pick. I decide which type of fabric is best suited for the creature. My first plushie stands up to 2 feet and 3 inches. I plan on making the other plushies at a smaller scale.

Hazei in a Teapot

This is the metal piece I'm doing for my art project. The teapot is observational. Its still a work in progress. I need to work on the teapot...thing....it doesn't look like metal at all. -__-" Oh and its not a cat!! Its a Hazei [ha-zay]. I created him a little while ago.


Some what of a close up?

White Charcoal on Black Paper

I drew this during my figure drawing class last friday.

Walnut Pieces

Walnut Piece I in process

This is an observational drawing of a walnut done in pencil.

Walnut Piece II in process
Part of the walnut series. Done in color pencil.