I initiated a long-term project with my art students, whereby we made homemade, DIY art journals, and worked in them throughout the year.  I then embarked on a project to create a guest entry into each one of my students' journals.  For this student, I painted a piece inspired by the classic, 'Great Expectations' by Charles Dickens, a book we read for our literature discussion -- and so we have tribute portraits of 'Pip' and 'Miss Haversham':


Poor, poor Pip.  An orphan raised in poverty by his abusive older sister, he falls under the influence of the neurotic but wealthy spinster, Miss Haversham.  Jilted by her fiance on her wedding day many years earlier, Miss Haversham never got over the trauma of being abandoned at the alter.  An eccentric recluse who refuses to wear anything other than her ancient, lacy wedding dress (or indeed to even clean up the decades-old, mouse-riddled remains of her uneaten wedding feast), Miss Haversham plots to get her revenge against all men by meticulously raising her beautiful adopted daughter, Estella, to become a reptilian-hearted man-hater.  Her evil grooming works.  Sadly, the befuddled Pip falls hopelessly in love with Estella, but goes on to have his heart pulverized when he realizes both  that (#1) Miss Haversham is NOT behind the anonymous funds he receives from a mysterious benefactor, as he had initially assumed (and she had allowed him to believe), and (#2) that Estella can't and will never return his affections.  Ouch!  Poor, poor Pip...!

And so I tried to portray the characters here, Pip and Miss Haversham, by expression -- plus as you can see I had lots of fun with the mixed media (lots and lots of lace!)....