This year was different in many ways for all VAM students. For Lyndsay, it was certainly something special and unique. Throughout this semester she worked on presenting a variety of skills she has learned throughout the Visual Arts and Media Academy. Lyndsay has taken a liking towards acrylic painting over the years and decided that it would be the best choice to showcase her skills. For her VAM 30 project, she completed three large paintings based on three of her photography pieces taken while in New York City. Her past years in the academy set her up for success and taught her all the skills needed to complete these paintings. This is the largest and most time-consuming project ever completed by her and she is proud to finally be showing it off. This series is called “New York in My Eyes.” Lyndsay has been used to filtering her photos and painting a filtered version of real-life for her past projects but decided it was time for a change. As VAM 30 was to be a final project, she decided to change it up and use the original photos as references. This gave her the freedom to keep the paintings as realistic or as abstract as her imagination craved. She dreams of living in a perfect world and uses that dream to keep her inspired. You will notice that some things in her paintings may be slightly altered or even missing when looking at the original photo compared to her painting. That is because for the world to be ideal in her eyes somethings needed to be changed. The process that it took to complete these three paintings was long and at times complicated. But it all began with looking through her photos from almost an entire year prior. She picked out her top four photos to paint and began by bringing them into photoshop to crop and slightly edit any thing that needed to be corrected. After using a projector to better align a few of the buildings and do an initial sketch of her first painting onto her canvas she could then begin the fun part: painting. Using acrylic paint and water she started with a wash over the entire canvas and then began. About halfway through her first painting, a global pandemic was declared and her project took a pause. A few weeks later after she was able to get her things from school and set up an at-home studio. Picking up where she left off wasn't as easy as it sounds. Things were different for her but she preserved and made some necessary changes. Lyndsay decided that it would be best to limit herself to three paintings as time was running out. Her process continued and she repeated the steps from before with her second and third paintings. Things were different at home working away from friends and teachers but everything worked itself out and her series quickly came together. The VAM academy has given Lyndsay many great opportunities to learn, create, and experiment. She is honoured to of been apart of the start of something so amazing and is looking forward to her future. Although life may not be consumed by her favourite class, VAM will forever be an amazing and lasting memory.