The Extended ACES Reader: Vic Romão Nóbrega Goes Behind the Cover Art by Ana Phanjavidze

This year, the ACES Reader’s theme was Falling Sky. The cover art was by ACES rising sophomore Ana Phanjavidze. With beautiful colors and techniques, she was able to portray her vision of a falling sky. The result was an exquisite cover that only made this Reader that much more special. Ana had a virtual conversation with me, fellow rising sophomore, Vic Romão Nóbrega, in which Ana shared her inspirations and how she came up with her drawing:

Vic: So if I may start, when you heard the theme Falling Sky, what was your first thought?

Ana: My first thought when I heard the theme “falling sky” was about a dream I had 2 days earlier. I had a dream which I think is familiar to all of you. In my dream, I was falling down from a high place and suddenly woke up frightened and when I heard about “falling sky” that dream was my first association.

V: So was your drawing based on any personal dream, experience, or any previous drawing?

A: Even though my first thought was about my dream, my painting is not based on that. It’s actually based on my childhood memories. It may sound funny, but when I was a kid, I used to believe that all of us have a guardian angel who lives in heaven. I believed that when we acted good and obeyed our parents and teachers, our guardian angels were happy and proud, and when we acted badly, we betrayed them and they were punished because of it. This may sound silly but that’s what I believed many years ago, so whenever I ate too many sweets or lied to my parents about doing my homework, I imagined my guardian angel attacked by evil forces and falling from heaven. That is what my image shows.

V: That is not silly at all! In fact, I used to believe in guardian angels as well—maybe I still do! Since you were imagining your childhood guardian angel, did you name any of the characters in your drawing?

A: To be honest, I don’t like naming my characters. I never do it in any of my artwork or writing pieces, because first, I am really bad at coming up with names, and second, I like my art to be general and broad and not about a specific character or person.

V: That is incredible! So anyone who is looking at your drawing can pick a name for kind of their own “guardian angel.”

A: Exactly!

V: Following the same line, why did you pick those specific colors?

A: Well the choice of blue is kind of obvious because blue symbolizes the sky. I chose white because it symbolizes heaven and the choice of yellow was determined by two reasons: It is my favorite color and also the yellow shades mixed in the blue sky is creating an impression that it is sunset time, and the yellow shades of the sun between the white and blue part is dividing sky and heaven. And finally, I chose the black color and ravens which are also black to symbolize darkness and evil.

V: What techniques did you use to draw the picture? Because, as you mentioned the colors mingle between each other and it created a whole different feeling.

A: I painted this picture with my Ipad in the app called ProCreate. I used multiple brushes and colors and blended everything together, added some glitters and that was it!

V: This looks like a great app! I’ll be sure to download it! So for my final question: How did you feel when you saw your drawing on the cover of the ACES Reader?

A: The whole story about this picture is funny and unexpected because I didn’t even consider participating in the contest at first. One day I was searching for ways to procrastinate and I remembered about the contest and started drawing random things on my Ipad. I sent the picture to Zoë at 3 AM without context; she didn’t even know it was mine! The next day, I walked in the Tutoring Center and I received lots of compliments and I was very happy. I’ve always hesitated to share my artwork with people, and this time, I am really glad that I did it. Because seeing my art on the cover was a very pleasant feeling and made me feel very proud.

V: I remember that you were trying to convince me to make a drawing! But now I cannot picture any other cover for the reader! Thank you so much for your time, Ana! We miss you a lot!

A: Thank you for this, I am really grateful and miss every one of you! Hope everyone is well and safe and I’ll see you soon!

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