My line drawing of an owl on the far right is almost complete. I used a wide variety of materials. I really stepped out of my comfort zone using ink, pens, markers, and paint based sharpies. For the other two on the right I decided to return to something more comfortable. I had an idea of these really bright dreamlike backgrounds, and i went with it. The orange one is going to be a realistic like owl in flight. The purple one is going to be a non-realistic owl. I'm looking forward to finishing them soon.
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For my next piece I want to do more of a tattoo style. I want to have a solid image of an owl and flowers. Everything will be outlined, just like a tattoo would. I'm not going to be doing a painting this time. I'm thinking about going with ink this time. The outlines with the ink will also help make it look more like a tattoo design. I'm going to be using the ink on watercolor paper. I'm still debating on weather or not i'm actually going to be using any watercolors on this piece. If I do use any it would be minimal.
I chose this as my second painting to turn in. I'm not quit done with it yet though. I agree with one of my teachers that it looks flat. He suggesteed that i study some van gough paintings. After this I'm going to try to build the image up with different brush strokes. I'm also using pallete knives in this to help with the texture. The owls will deffinately look better once theyre built up. I'm still very happy with the colors. I just wish they'd go together more.
This was the start of another owl. The idea was a great white owl, that looked realistic. This was on top of the nonrealistic background, of multiple colors. However after laying out the owl, I realized the proportions were off. I wanted the owl to be more realistic than cartoonish. So I covered up the old owl, and decided to start over. For the next owl I'll look at more real life pictures to work from. As far as the back ground goes there was no plan to the colors. I just mixed whatever was on my palate together. It turned out as expected.
So I decided to paint over the owls, in an attempt to fix them. I wanted to add more detail. The faces looked off, so I just painted over them entirely. I'm going to look at real life pictures of owls, to try and make them look better. This also covered up the off colors in their faces. I wanted to add more detail to their chest feathers. For this I went back in with another color to make them stand out more. I still need to fix the smaller owl, but I think this piece is coming along alright. The brown shades, however still need to be changed up.
With the painting on the right I'm still not sure how exactly to finish it. I'm just going to let it sit for a while. With the painting on the left I decided to change up the background. I started randomly mixing colors on my palat, and I ended up liking it. I love the bright blue green background. I'm not a fan of the way the owls turned out. I think the brown needs to be darker, with more red. I do not like the lighter color used as highlights for the owls. That was a bad idea.
My concentration has shifted from recovery to owls. My mom really loved owls, so when she passed I took up collecting them as well. The left canvas with the owl is probably my favorite at this point. I really love the colors, and how nature based they are. I just need to go back in and do some detail work. I also need to figure out what to do with the moon and the background to make it more fitting to the owl. The next canvas still needs a lot of work. This one is going to be less realistic. I picture having three little owls sitting on tree branches.
For my self portrait I used image transfer to get the outlines of my face onto my paper. I practiced this in my sketchbook, and then did it on my actual paper. I used a soft pencil to cover the back sheet of my picture. I then went over the lines on the front of my picture with a pencil, which left an outline in pencil when I removed the picture. I went over this in a fine point sharpie. I plan to color some of this in with colored pencils, and leave the rest undone, or perhaps cut the paper down to size.
My social commentary is just about finished. One thing I really love about this painting is the color of the bruises, and how it's just running down the paper. I also like the face. I think I did a great job on that. The outlines are nice, but could be faded into shadows a little more. I really do not like the background. I'm not sure what could replace it to make it better. The colors just seem off to the rest of the piece.
For my project I decided to go a little astray from the original idea. I wanted to do butterflies swirling up the canvas to represent the stages of recovery. I love how the background turned out, going from dark to light. The shading is on point, as well as the colors. The butterflies still need a lot of work. I just started out with very simple shadows, and intend on going back in with more detail. The butterflies were supposed to go from dark to light. Small to big was another symbol. I also had the idea of starting out with very simplistic butterflies and making them more detailed and pretty as the reached the top, or the final stage of recovery.
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Artist Statement
Addiction and Recovery are the main themes in all my work. These two topics have had a profound impact on my life. Through the struggles I've fought, it is what made me the person I am today. I wouldn't trade it for anything. My strong emotions for these topics come naturally to me in my work. Almost anything can be made to represent one of the two. From dark to light is one of my favorite ways to represent recovery. I've also used black and white to vivid color transformations. Small to large, plain to complex, there are a million different ways to represent the work. I'm also a big fan of using bright colors isolated in an area with the rest being black and white to still give the piece a feeling of underlying depression. This can be seen in my Manson piece I've titled "Help Me". Life is like one big decision. We can choose to remain addicts, or we can choose recovery. |