Music

Natalie Costas "Radiohead"

Acrylic, 2025

 My idea for this painting came from the song, 'Fake Plastic Trees' by the band Radiohead. I wanted to do something with this song because it is one of my favorite songs and Radiohead is my favorite band. I started by looking up some ideas, and it evolved from there. I started by grabbing a smaller canvas because of the amount of time left in the year. I then painted the background, making different shades of blue and creating a sort of ombre look. Then, I used transfer paper to get the drawing onto the canvas. After that was done, I used a paint pen to outline the tree, vase, and the words. After that, I went in with metallic colored pencils to color in the tree, I used different shades of brown and green. After that, I went back over the lines with the paint pen to make it look cleaner. I wrote some of the lyrics, the ones that stand out to me the most, and kept repeating the last part. The artwork shows not only my love for the song, but the deeper meaning it holds. It shows the depth of the lyrics in a different way. The tree represents the song title, the tree is a plastic tree, but still in water. It shows how when you are watering something that is not real, it gets tiring and you are basically water a dead plant. I want the viewer to be able to feel the lyrics, especially if they are going through similar feelings. The most difficult part for me was the outlining of the words. They came out more crooked than I was hoping. I overcame it by trying to have steadier hands. It ended up helping more than I thought it would. If I were to start over, I would mess with how I wrote the lyrics. My handwriting looks very shaky and uneven. I would also mess with the placement of the words as well. This piece is Surreal, it's a mix of real objects like the glass jar and fake tree, with an emotionally expressive background from the repeated text. The handwriting of the lyrics makes it unique to my style. The repeated words makes it feel more personal. The music I listen to is also a way I express myself. What I love most about it is not only my favorite song, but it feels very raw in emotions. It's very simple, but very relateable and realistic in that manner.