Mer-quins, Body Prints, and Burlap Babes, OH MY!

Big Sketch, 3 x 3 1/2 ft., acrylic, burlap and collage on mdf

Okay, this is not a finished piece by any means. Every few Saturdays (ideally) my friends Julie, Andrew and I get together to share our creative endeavors. Andrew is a friend I met while studying with UGA in Cortona, Italy and Julie is one of my closest friends from IU and coincidentally my RA from freshman year. Long story short, Andrew paints and creates fun new things out of old things (stationary, earrings, etc.), Julie writes. Click their names to see some of their creativity that has made it to the web! It has been a quite a privilege to see the wonderful things they are working on and get their feed back on my work.

Speaking of their feedback, back to my point. I shared this piece with them on one of our first days together. I knew the piece wasn't congealing at all but I really enjoyed each part I had done. Andrew suggested that my large piece of mdf is just a large sketch pad. Amazing. So, in my mind, this piece contains many potential paintings and ideas that I would like to share with you.

This is not being presented in order of layers which is burlap, body prints, collage/painting.

Mer-quin

The mermaid reference can be seen a bit better when viewing this section in the whole piece. I love the billowy bottom half of the figure. I had a wonderful time integrating the collage pieces which are from a screen print I did a little over one year ago. You can view that print, Edna, on my etsy page. The two pieces melded together in regards to subject and color scheme way before I knew it. Man, are we creatures of habit.

The screen print was one of the first times I started dealing with subject matter and figure instead of just figure. It is really the first piece where I started dealing with the female figure, mannequins and kitschy wall paper schemes. These three elements are overall what I have been dealing with the last few months .

As you look at the painting you can see that I used the test pieces from Edna for the wallpaper in the background.

May I also mention that two pieces of literature Kate Chopin's novel The Awakening, Edna is the main character in this book. I have also been influenced by Charlotte Perkins Gliman' short story The Yellow Wallpaper. Thank you high-school English.

Body Print

Over the last few months I have been experimenting with body prints on and off. It is risky because you have to completely rely on your own body strength and simultaneously hope the paint will work the right way quickly. Its really fun to do. This photo is altered so you can see the melon colored print. This print has been my favorite full body print I have done. The mermaid's bottom half was also a body print but I covered most of it with paint.

Burlap Babe

This part is a quick drawing I did with strips of burlap from old coffee bags I got in MI this summer. I really like the way it came out aesthetically. On another level this burlap made the body prints pretty uncomfortable. Which i think is good. There is intended irony here and the discomfort i experienced justified it and brought it to another level.

I'll stop beating the horse and let you think a little and make it something for yourself.

Burlap Babe's waist

Action and texture. Yes please.

Burlap Babe's hemline (or something like it)

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Let me know if you have any questions about these sketches. I am really enjoying them and questions make me think.

A small piece of news, I did do a video of an improve painting. I have not finished the painting due to a silly cold that i can't quite kick. As soon as that is gone I'll finish the painting and share with you the first of many videos of my painting process!