Approaching Firestar
Brianna Blanchard
Major: Environmental Public Health
Genre/Medium: Colored pencil on paper
About the Work:
Approaching Firestar is a colored pencil drawing on an 11 x 17 piece of paper inspired by the Psyche spacecraft’s upcoming May 2026 Mars flyby, as well as the Chinese name for Mars, Huǒxīng (火星), which translates to “Firestar”. As a Chinese American artist myself, I was very drawn to the translated name. It made me think about how people have viewed celestial bodies across time through different cultural perspectives, whether with ancient naming traditions or modern scientific exploration.
The composition shows a retrofuturistic looking landscape, where a winding road leads towards a distant modern city beneath Mars dominating the sky. A red vintage car inspired by a 1960s GM Pontiac Firebird, built to showcase space-age design, travels along the road and mirrors the trajectory of the Psyche spacecraft passing above. Rather than focusing on arrival, the piece centers on the moment of approach as an in-between space of both anticipation and forward movement, similar to what will occur with the 2026 Mars flyby (the flyby essentially being a gravity assist maneuver), where the spacecraft will pass close to Mars and use its gravitational pull to redirect and accelerate toward the asteroid Psyche.
In terms of my process, I aimed to use a different medium for each piece completed during this internship as an artistic challenge. I began with graphite and charcoal, then tried oil painting, followed by pen and ink, and finally made my fourth and last project using colored pencils. Surprisingly, despite being one of the mediums I’ve used the longest (since I was a child), colored pencils were the most difficult personally. Unlike paint which I can layer freely, or graphite which can be erased, and even black ink which can be covered with white pen, colored pencils require a more deliberate approach. I focused less on realism and more on surrealism, purposefully simplifying some areas of the composition while concentrating detail in key focal points. My hope was for this to allow the primary shapes to stand out without being overwhelmed by too many elements in the background. Using colored pencils pushed me to think more intentionally about every mark and color, which helped strengthen my technical control as an artist.
Overall, Approaching Firestar reflects the idea that while our methods of exploration have changed, our sense of wonder still remains constant. Across centuries and cultures, Mars has been imagined, named, and then reimagined again, which goes to show that our pursuit of understanding unknown celestial bodies is also deeply influenced by language and culture.
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