Briar Rose

To have hair fall perfectly into place is an unrealistic expectation, captured in my drawing “Beauty.” 

Briar Rose, also known as Princess Aurora from Sleeping Beauty, has what I would consider to be perfect hair. I became obsessed with looking at Marc Davis’s drawings for her, studying how her bangs framed her face and the curled ends framed the hair shape. I started searching for examples of her hair in real life to see if it was possible for hair to achieve. The rise of Sabrina Carpenter’s hair also influenced my interest in this particular hairstyle, but I was looking for something slightly different than a blow out and curtain bangs. Briar Rose’s thick hair was more straight overall, with her bangs above her eyebrows.

At the same time, I was working on a drawing I started in my sketchbook. The original reference photo is a screenshot from a Tik Tok video of my friend, Alexa, doing her hair. knew I wanted to draw a different hair shape, but I wasn’t sure on how to design the hair to show movement. 

I have a self-proclaimed motto of: “I was raised by animators.” When I was learning how to paint in college, the majority of my closest friends were animators. It was the first time I was exposed to thinking of figures in motion instead of sitting for a pose. It took years to see real influence on my artwork, but I think it is starting to show with this drawing. I asked my friend, Amanda Gonzales, to critique my drawing and help me design the hair using Briar Rose as a reference. In awe, I watched her digitally drawing over my artwork with an animator’s confidence. Thinking of the hair in groupings with gesture, I mapped out the contour lines to attempt the same movement as Briar Roses’s hair.

I eventually came to the realization Briar Rose is an animated women and therefore her hair cannot exist in the same successful way in real life (duh). I feel somewhat contradictory; I created an artwork solely based on unrealistic hair to be apart of my body of work which discussing the pressures I feel towards getting ready. This drawing represents the emotional turmoil in attempting to achieve unrealistic expectations.