Parmita's Blog

I was featured in SCS Day again!!! Last year (link) I had a small display with a handful of my comics. It was a lot of fun being featured as well as attending and seeing everyone else’s diverse range of talents.  This year, I got the opportunity to be featured again and had a lot more art to share. I got an entire wall of my art and comics and to be honest it was almost overwhelming! I’ve openly shared my art online to thousands of people, but that has never really been nerve-wracking since I don’t actually know those people. But here, my work was blown up and put on the walls of the Gates computer science building--the same building I practically live in and seen by all the people I work with and respect. That has a completely different feeling to it and while I was proud of my work I also felt a little scared. Would they like it? What if my students saw it? Will people see me differently? Would people think of me as less of a serious computer scientist if they saw this sill

I’ve been making fun comic strips and fanart for as long as I can remember. This has mostly been a solo activity since I didn’t know any other people who were interested in making them too. But then last year at CMU’s Activity Fair I came across Artist Alley--a club dedicated to people making fanart like I do! Of course, I immediately joined and it has been so much fun. And this year, I even tabled at the Activity Fair myself! Some of the art pieces are mine :) It has been such a great experience being with a community of people who enjoy the same niche things that I do. One of the biggest benefits has been the structured improvement of my art skills. I have never actually taken an art class, so everything I’ve learned about art has been through online tutorials and just looking at a lot of other artist’s work. But at Artist Alley, I joined a mentor-mentee program where I get weekly assignments and critique from a more experienced artist. Until now, I never really had the o