Alexa Zhang
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ART & ANIMATION / NOTICING · MAKING · EXPRESSING
A visual diary.In color.In motion.
Ten years of putting the world as I feel it onto paper.
Drawings, moving images, and small things made by hand — each a way of noticing a little more.
Explore my visual diary
a little feeling in every line.
Flow State · a world inside a moment.
look a little closer.
01 / PAINTING GALLERY
Learning to see,one drawing at a time.
Sketching taught me to notice people. Drawing taught me light, volume, and boundaries. Painting gave those observations a voice.
10 years
of sustained drawing and painting
Grade 9
drawing qualification
Grade 8
sketching qualification
Click a work to take a closer look ↗
Color & character
PAINTING / PORTRAIT STUDY
A familiar face, translated through color and gesture.
Landscape in layers
PAINTING / LANDSCAPE
Light, warm rock, and the rhythm of distant terrain.
Fish in graphite
DRAWING / STILL LIFE & TEXTURE
A fish still life, observed through scales, folded paper, light, and shadow.
A face in profile
DRAWING / PORTRAIT STUDY
Learning to read an expression through light and shadow.
Paper & architecture
MIXED MEDIA / ARCHITECTURE
Printed paper and painted forms meet in an architectural study.
Light through trees
PAINTING / ATMOSPHERE
Color becomes a way of describing how a place feels.
FAMILY ARCHIVE
PAINTING IN PROGRESS
THE HABIT BEHIND THE WORK
Different years.The same curiosity.
From childhood drawing days to paintings made one brushstroke at a time, art has stayed with me through changing places.
Every medium teaches me a different way to pay attention.
Selected work on public display / Rotary Pavilion project.
FROM THE STUDIO INTO THE WORLD
A private sketch.A public conversation.
Art became a bridge when I moved abroad. Sharing my work helped me find confidence, conversation, and a place in a new community.
First Place · City of Gastonia Annual Student Art Show
Finalist · 2025 Congressional Art Competition
Selected · Rotary Pavilion Public Art Project
View recognition
ART THAT LEAVES THE SKETCHBOOK
A drawing can becomesomething you live with.
A paid personal-logo commission for a classmate became a T-shirt. A commercial identity for my mother’s company entered real use. Painting on a tote brought the same impulse into everyday life.
COMMERCIAL IDENTITY
A mark with a purpose.
Designing for a business meant considering identity, communication, and the places a logo would appear.
HAND-PAINTED TOTE
A small canvas, carried.
The drawing leaves the sheet of paper and becomes part of an ordinary day.
02 / SENIOR PROJECT · IN PROGRESS
An internationalstudent story.
An iPad frame-by-frame animation about moving across cultures, feeling new, and finding belonging.
IN PROGRESS · Planned for the school’s welcome materials.
03 / CREATIVE COURSEWORK
Even my science homeworkbecomes a production.
I use images and narrative to make abstract ideas easier to see — in science, literature, and the projects that connect them.
Original AP Chemistry music video · 3:12 · Sound on.
AP CHEMISTRY / MUSIC VIDEO
Making the invisiblevisible — and rhythmic.
I independently planned and made a music video that turns chemistry concepts into a hand-drawn visual sequence. Rhythm and pictures become another way to explain.
BIOLOGY / MITOSIS IN STOP-MOTION
A cell cycle,made by hand.
A Biology assignment becomes a stop-motion account of mitosis. Yarn, beads, and paper labels turn a complex process into a sequence that can be seen and followed.
METHOD / hand-built materials + stop-motion
SOURCE FILM / 1 minute 14 seconds
Open motion preview
Preview opens a silent excerpt from the original film.
Original Biology film · 1:14 · Yarn, beads, and paper in motion.
LITERATURE / BOOK COVER
The Yellow Wallpaper
A cover design turns a literary atmosphere into a visual point of entry.
LITERATURE / VISUAL INTERPRETATION
A circle of the Inferno
An imagined layer of Dante’s Inferno, built through depth, repetition, and light.
04 / BLUTOPIA · PUBLISHING & PERSISTENCE
Keep making.Keep sending it out.
For three years, I kept submitting to Blutopia — revising, listening, and trying again. A cover selection and NCSMA Honorable Mention grew from that patient cycle.
The small lesson stayed with me: a visual language develops through observation, feedback, and repeated attempts.
3 YEARS OF SUBMISSIONS
Cover artwork selected · NCSMA Honorable Mention
A piece from my submission archive.
observe → make → revise
→ try again.
SMALL OBJECTS / A LONG HABIT OF MAKING
Big feelings.Small things, made by hand.
Clay, thread, paint, and miniature scenes let me explore texture and structure at a scale I can hold.
A miniature world
MAKING / SCENE & STRUCTURE
Small figures and built elements become a way of arranging a whole world.
Clay, then color.
MAKING / MODELED & PAINTED FORM
Modeled skull studies and a painted apple-and-skull form explore surface, volume, and contrast.
A little woven hat
MAKING / THREAD & PATIENCE
Tiny stitches and repeated loops turn a simple material into something with character.
Art gives a space its voice.
Drawing trains my attention. Animation lets a feeling unfold. Making brings it into the world. These are the same habits I carry into the spaces I design.
Explore Space & Stage
