My Painting
Projects

This painting of mine represents a time in my personal life where I felt like I had been stuck in the past and was constantly in a state of reminiscing, so much so that I would forget to live in the present. Here, you can see someone in a serene yet dark landscape, looking at the water and the cityscape across the lake. I used three media, which include watercolor, acrylic paint, and colored pencil.

The water and the night sky were colored with watercolor paint, and the grass and trees were designed with colored pencil. The moon, clouds, and the mountain, into a skyline silhouette, were created using acrylic paint. To add a sort of murk to the clouds and a glow to the moon, I used a technique where I had lightly watered down plain white acrylic paint and damped it down with my finger. To add an overall gloom or dark filter to the paper, I had gone over the bright parts that I had colored with pencil, with a dark, watered-down watercolor.

As an artist, I mainly want to find a way to express more personal aspects of my life in a way that not only looks pretty to my tastes, but also has that personal connection. Through this project, I was able to express a personal struggle of mine and find some sort of value in the part of me that loves my memories and lives in the past. I believe that in the future, I'll be able to better represent these personal ideas of mine, and translate these ideas to be more direct on paper instead of so hidden as it was in this painting.

Overall, I am proud of how my piece came out and now know what I can improve on again, should I make another similarly themed painting! I was able to sharpen some techniques and figured out ways to overcome the struggles I found, especially dealing with media that can cause more permanent markings.

This painting of mine was inspired by my love for my job and the Halloween season. I was able to achieve this look through using acrylic paint and both brush and finger painting techniques. Since it is a painting that was meant to invoke the spook of Halloween, I used darker and gloomier colors than what you would see in real life. Normally, when most people think of In-N-Out, they associate bright colors of white and red with feelings of joy and happiness, as the establishment is well known for. I took a twist on that idea and decided to emphasize the gloom of the night with a darker, more wine-red than the normal bright red. I had also dumbed down the bright neon lights with a more muted yellow in order to emphasize the center ghost.

For this artwork, I mainly wanted to work on my skills with perspective and fabric detailing. Shading with the In-N-Out building was able to help me learn a little bit more about how shadows work with point of view and light sources. Overall, I was mainly focusing on learning shadows. 

This can be seen through the ghost as well, as fabric and the movement of fabric is, for most, a challenge in shading. In the end, I think I could've put more attention on those fabric details and the sky details, but I'm happy with the color choices and base shape!​​​

With this painting, I was able to develop skills that made me look closer at trying to replicate realistic details. I had to look at a real-life photo and look at the details, and see how I could copy that with paint.

Details such as seeds and the edges were the main challenge of this painting, but I was able to overcome that through layering. I had layered multiple layers of different contrasting paints for the seed effect. For the edges, I had the first layer before I had filled in the cucumber then I went over them again after the cucumbers were filled in.​​​

For anything but a canvas, I decided on a Double LP Vinyl as I wanted to have a gift one, keep one style of painting. I had made both with the same/similar pattern of flowers, stems, and clouds. I had painted straight on the vinyl, as I wanted to keep the bold blue as the background. The vinyl I painted on was the Bewitched: Goddess Edition by Laufey, which contains songs covering many themes, mostly romance. 

I wanted to paint things that actually coincided with the music I was painting on, so I took a look at the lyrics and found some imagery that I figured would fit the idea of a vinyl. Two of the major inspirations were from two songs on the album, "Misty" - Covered by Laufey, and "While You Were Sleeping" - Laufey Original. From Misty, I thought of the cloudy and hazy atmosphere From While You Were Sleeping, the lyric, "A light pink bouquet, a promise you'll stay, then I start to believe", inspired me to paint the pink flowers you can see hanging and growing along the vinyl. I definitely faced challenges when it came to the roses, as I didn't know how to add the layers. Eventually, I figured out how to add different layers of colors with certain crescent shapes. The stems were simple, and the clouds were done after the stem base was done.​​​​

Overall, I'm glad with the simplicity of the design and with figuring out new techniques.

This painting reflects the peace and serenity of my life. We can see that through the swan that rests gracefully in the divided landscape.  The point of this project was to experiment with the separation between watercolor and pen and ink. I wanted to create a blend between the two, which is where the 4 squares on all the corners of the painting are for. ​

I added those to help add balance and add some of the blank pen and ink around the painting, largely since the main shape in the center is fairly small. 

 I blended some of the watercolor elements that went into the pen space  by keeping the color even though the space was supposed to be absent of color.

This paint pour was created by layering a variety of colors and having them flow and drip into a large canvas.

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From the start of the brainstorming process, I knew I wanted to keep earthy tones yet also create that dreamy and galactic look that comes with most paint pours.

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After the pour, I loved the accents of gold in the paint, so I used gold sharpie to create the tree after it dried.

For this painting, I had no real idea for what I would do with the bubbles, but I knew I would figure out after the bubbles flowed onto the paper.

After the bubbles fell how they fell, and the painting dried, I saw that it looked a little bit like a gravel or stone path, so I decided to create a deserted and sandy look on the outside with watercolor pencil.  

Finally, I outlined the path and some of the stones in the path and finished the piece.

For the smoke itself,  I had swirled the flame around the blank paper and  while it was still fresh, stroked a curved thick line in the same pattern that you see the vines in, which set the groundwork for the pattern of said vines. 

I then used a charcoal pencil to draw in the vines themselves and also the thorns.

I wanted a very subtle pop of color, so I colored some of the thorns red and dispersed the red thorns the farther they got from the "origin". 

The origin was originally an accident (where the burned paper is), but I figured to use it and make it seem as if that emptiness is where the vines came from, almost like something alien.

I knew that for this painting technique, the unpredictability of the direction of the ink would work perfectly with the unpredictable growing pattern of tree branches and leaves. 

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I would paint a thick blob of water colored water in the general shape then I would blow from above to create those splattered lines. 

I then went over the design with a thin layer of a dark red water color to help fill the whites in the design.

I saw some inspiration photos and immediately knew I wanted to create a landscape, reflection scene. I figured paint marbling would be the best technique for this type of look. 

With the way my marbling color came out, I figured a more tree oriented scene would work well with a hill and tree focused landscape.

The contrast between the colors of the white, blue, red, and green, then the black of the silhouette landscape, created a bit of a disparity in balance that I would probably fix by replacing the white with a darker color next time.

Cubism is a style of art I definitely struggled in trying to dip my toes into. I first wanted to start by sketching basic shapes and a good, very randomly and naturally  chosen base. I first started with the dragonfly and I created the different sections off angular lines that stemmed from the dragonfly body or tree-stump. When it comes to why I chose a dragonfly, I simply just wanted to have a subject that could be easily manipulable into another object. I knew I somehow wanted to incorporate music, so I turned the dragonfly into a guitar to have a more abstract look. I then used similar colors and textures that is found on the butterfly and put those onto the different segments, as if they were a zoomed in, broken segment of the subject. Whether it was the tail, the wing color/pattern, or a repeat of the guitar body and head, I wanted a sense of random chaos to be apart of the painting. I think I did well on the color choices and how geometric the painting was.  I probably just could've done a more experimental approach instead of leaning towards a more rigid and typical style. I feel like this painting definitely has that experimental touch, but doesn't carry that beauty of controlled chaos that a lot of cubist paintings have. Overall, I'm proud of this final painting artwork of mine, I just could have been more free with how I wanted to actually paint in terms of style.