Psyche Inspired: Isabella Garcia

Smiling person in a floral dress sits outdoors at night under string lights and a red umbrella

Institution: University of Michigan
Major: BFA Art & Design
Psyche Inspired Class: 2025-2026

Reflections on Psyche Inspired

Reflections on Project 1: The Pieces of Psyche

“The Pieces of Psyche" shows the Psyche craft in dark space, surrounded by its key instruments and stars. It has a large box-shaped core, two purple solar panels. On a larger scale, there is a dark grey magnetometer cylinder with a light grey ball, a dark hollow imager tube on a black base, and a grey barrel-shapped gamma-ray and neutron spectrometer connected to a metal box with wires.

The Pieces of Psyche

Isabella Garcia

December 15th, 2025
Major:Art and Design
Genre/Medium: Digital Painting, Procreate, Adobe Photoshop
About the work:

This work, “The Pieces of Psyche,” is a digital poster that illustrates the key instruments that will be used to scan the Psyche asteroid. These include the magnetometer, multispectral imager, and gamma-ray and neutron spectrometer. While there are other instruments on the craft, these three are the main ones that will be used to analyze the asteroid. The three figures surround the main craft and are illustrated at the same size as the craft in order to visualize everything better. Each part has a short and clear description of what it is made to do when it reaches its destination and the information it will gather from the asteroid. They are also labeled as to where on the craft they are located.

The purpose of this is to be an entry-way to the Psyche mission for those who just want a quick introduction to the project. Since many NASA and JPL missions have a lot of information to learn about, I wanted to make a poster that condenses the data in order for an audience to be intrigued rather than overwhelmed. I feel that there are two purposes to this piece: One is to introduce the mission so that an individual will be excited to research more about Psyche. The other is if someone only wants a quick overview of a portion of what the Psyche mission is about. As someone who lives at the intersection between the art and science worlds, I have seen both sides of the spectrum stray away from each other when they do not see an overlap between their studies. I want to use this project as a building block for understanding scientific topics in a visual form.

Project Details: The Pieces of Psyche

Reflections on Project 2: Possibilities

The piece depicts four loosely styled spherical asteroids that float in space among stars. Each has two central craters. The first is brown with light grey spots; the second is grey with various shades and highlights. The third features brown, tan, and orange tones; the fourth is a mix of tan, grey, and brown.

Possibilities

Isabella Garcia

March 2nd, 2026
Major: Art & Design
Genre/Medium: Digital Painting
About the work:

This project, “Possibilities,” is a digital painting made to depict different ideas as to what the Psyche asteroid may look like. Since we have not yet reached the asteroid and therefore do not have any pictures of it, we can only speculate what it may be. I chose to do this project because I also felt that it demonstrated the creative minds of scientists. When speaking to scientists and reading articles about the mission, it was interesting to see how the asteroid was described. While they were, of course, using technical terms, I was also inspired by how much beauty they found in wondering what the final destination may look like. I felt a connection to that imagination and wanted to portray that in my project. The four asteroids are illustrated in a “rough” or “sketchy” style for the purpose of demonstrating the fact that these are only ideas and not set in stone. From left to right, they show an asteroid with very little metal on the surface, one that is covered in large patches of metal, another that is solely covered in bedrock, and a fourth that is covered entirely with regolith (small grains of soil, not on Earth). While these are just speculations, I wanted to bring to life the most prominent ideas that scientists have regarding the image of the Psyche Asteroid.

Project Details: Possibilities

Reflections on Project 3: The Soul of the Mission

This piece depicts five butterflies, carrying different parts of the Psyche spacecraft. They are all moving in different directions and are holding the instruments on their back, in between their wings. In the background, there are dotted lines moving between the figures. Everything is outlined in black, and the shading is done in black cross-hatching.

The Soul of the Mission

ISABELLA GARCIA

April 8th, 2026

Major: Art & Design

Genre/Medium: Digital Illustration

About the Work:

This piece, “The Soul of the Mission,” is a digital illustration that describes the creation of the Psyche craft through the lens of those who are not shown at the forefront of the mission. The purpose of this project was to show those who were crucial to the mission but were not portrayed in the media. When speaking to NASA and JPL scientists, it was clear that every person who worked on the Psyche craft was important, and had a job that could not have been replaced. This piece displays five butterflies carrying the main components of the craft, including the magnetometer, gamma ray and neutron spectrometer, one of the solar panels, an imager, and the X-band high-gain antenna. These are some of the most important and/or visible parts of the craft, and therefore, I chose them as the main instruments to display. It was illustrated in a hatching form to convey a sense of active work and progression, as well as movement from the butterflies. The choice of butterflies was carefully considered because the goddess Psyche, the namesake of the mission, is represented by the butterfly. As she is the goddess of the soul, I also wanted to represent the fact that the scientists who were working on the mission are the souls of the Psyche mission.

Project Details: The Soul of the Mission

Reflections on Project 4: Rotation

This piece depicts four asteroids in muted shades of blue. They are lined up vertically and replicated in a way that makes them appear to be rotating forward. They are not shaded, but rather the shades are blocked in with color. There are two large circles and two smaller circles that move along the asteroid with smaller pieces around them. The piece has a black background and stars.

Rotation

Isabella Garcia

Major: Art & Design

Genre/Medium: Digital Illustration/Procreate

About the Work:

This project, “Rotation,” is a digital illustration that demonstrates the unique rotation of Psyche. I was inspired by how the asteroid moves like a wheel on its side rather than a spinning top. The piece aims to represent this while remaining a still image. It is illustrated in a sketch-like style to help show the movement of the figure as well as the unknown nature of Psyche. I wanted to focus on small ways to incorporate movement without creating an animation. I have also become interested in how much is still a mystery surrounding the asteroid, and therefore decided to add some of this intrigue to the project. The muted colors help to demonstrate a metal-rich surface of Psyche, which is one idea of what the asteroid may look like. The muted blues also represent how what we know regarding Psyche is still very limited. The piece starts and ends with the same image to show a full rotation, helping to bring the project to a close. This helps to hold the rest of the figures together in a very open space. “Rotation” represents so many things that we know and that we don’t know about the Psyche asteroid. This project aims to demonstrate how wonderful it can be to create art and wonder about an object that we won’t see for years.

Project Details: Rotation

The Psyche badge with no words on it.

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