Max Rubin – Teary Eyed

This piece is a visualization of the mental health struggle that many high schoolers face during their junior and senior year. The portrait used as the base for ‘Teary Eyed’ is completely emotionless, showing how a lot of students hide their emotions in an attempt to not draw attention to themselves. The texture added in post adds paper-like wrinkles underneath the eye to show tears, the emotion that wasn’t visually present in the portrait but is revealed after the fact. Finally the black and white represents how depression can often be characterized as a ‘loss of color’ and how it can become hard to not see the world in shades of gray.