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Friday, November 5, 2010

Oil? Acrylic? Abstract? Realistic?

One fish! Two fish! Red fish! Blue fish!

I am constantly influenced by the world around me and have a tendency to imitate other artists work or style. Most of the work I love is abstract, and as a result, my work ends up abstract. At some point, I was almost unsure if I knew how to represent the real world anymore! After flipping through a photo journal, I found a series of beautiful painterly images of dilapidated buildings and rooms and decided I needed to try something new. A painting is abstract in its own right: what you are looking at certainly is not two chairs in disrepair but rather an image (digital files) of an image (painting) of an image (photo) of two chairs. Who knows what they really look like?

After painting, someone pointed out how they looked similar to an oil painting, even though I am working in arcylic. Unfortunately, these images do not give the texture justice, but I used a specific textured paint that crackles after a few hours to give texture to the wall and to provide body to the yellowing chair stuffing. The result mimics the broken visual texture seen in the original image. 




Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Halloween costumes 2010

This year, on a business trip 5 days before Halloween, I began thinking about what I should dress up as. I remember years ago when I planned months, literally months, in advance to ensure I had the best costume I could come up with. In college, naturally, I wanted to fit in and dress in a sexy little store bought costume. Truth be told, the purchased outfits were 1.) overpriced and 2.) made me feel more uncomfortable than ever.

This year, I decided to ditch the same generic outfits offered nation wide and went for something practical, creative and easily recognizable. Its also way more fun to do a costume with a partner in crime or with a group. I recruited my boyfriend, two bubble umbrellas ordered from Amazon.com (remember, I am on a business trip and had little time to shop), translucent gift wrap from Michael's and bubble wrap generously donated from work. Oh and don't forget the tape (did I mention it was no-sew?)! Thursday night, I sat down, attached strips of bubble wrap to the tips of the umbrellas and hung thoughtfully cut pieces of gift wrap to the metal architecture. The result? An admittedly fragile, but beautiful guise.

Key to our outfits was color coordination... I utilized mainly purple items and wore a purple shirt whereas my boyfriend used the blue gift wrap and donned a baby blue American Apparel tee. The gold lame pants really finished the look.