Digital Illustration
Adobe Photoshop
All You Can Eat
This digital illustration was juried into the annual Casa Bonita Art Show in Denver, CO. If you aren't familiar with this iconic restaurant, a short summary to catch you up is as follows: Casa Bonita is a family-friendly establishment. The outside is a bright pink castle, and the inside is decorated like a jungle, with a waterfall, foliage, and lots of side attractions including a puppet show area. The food was horrible and everyone knew it and it was a running joke (before reopening under a head chef). You had to order a full meal in order to enter and see the live entertainment. The food came out in a cafeteria style format and the runny cheese sauce was a staple of their menu. The All You Can Eat item on their menu was their best selling plate.
4:15 a.m.
I woke up in the middle of the night, checked the time out of fear of not being able to fall back asleep, and it was 4:15am. I lay there awake with my thoughts. They’re scattered, sometimes serious, sometimes nonsensical types of thoughts. The more I try to stop the chatter, the louder and more annoying it gets. This has been happening sporadically since I was a kid. I inherited this very chatty, anxious brain from my family. My mother, her mother, my great uncle, cousins, aunts, uncles…I always thought this was normal.
Of the many thoughts that passed through my brain that night, I imagined what my brain would look like visually during this type of episode. This is how I imagine it.
+The Brain: Shh is written inside the brain in an attempt to quiet itself
+Teeth: these chattering teeth are the many thoughts that cycle through
+Pills: melatonin tablets slowly moving about to combat the chatter
+1000: counting down 1000 to 1 is written tiny throughout the background and is supposed to help you fall back asleep
Animation
An animated version created in After Effects.