Painting 1
"Mushroom Forest"
15x21”, Acrylic on Cardboard, 2022
My idea was a forest of giant mushrooms with eyes. I got this idea from the “dreamcore” aesthetic online. It evolved from a sketch with a few mushrooms with badly-drawn eyes on them to this. One thing I changed was the colors of the mushrooms. In my original sketch, the mushrooms were just red. I decided that that looked too plain and not dream-like enough.
I started by painting a background: a plain blue sky and hills of green that slowly went into the distance. I then added the mushrooms in the foreground, then the middle, and finally the background, all while slowly making them smaller and less detailed. I then added a little shading. I took a few magazines and cut out as many of the eyes as possible and glued them to the mushrooms. After the glue dried, I watered down my paint and went over the mushrooms so the eyes looked more attached to the world they were in. I finished by covering the entire thing in mod podge.
The artwork honestly doesn’t mean anything. There’s no symbology, no purpose, just 110 eyes on mushrooms.
The most difficult thing for me was the path in the middle, specifically mixing the color. Browns are always a hard color to mix because they have so many different undertones. I overcame this by mixing a few tones of brown and picking the one I liked best. If I started over, I would just get rid of the path. It caused a little trouble and I’m not sure if it is necessary.
This painting is in the surreal art style. Something that makes it unique to my own style is the presence of eyes. I like to incorporate eyes into my work because they are just unsettling enough to put you on edge without being expressly scary. I love the colors I chose because they are so bright and almost unreal.
"Dreamscape"
9x12", Acrylic on cardboard, 2022
My idea was to create a painting inspired by the 60s and 70s. I got this idea originally from Pinterest and other online platforms. I
I started by painting the entire canvas black and sketching the design on top. I then mixed my colors and started painting. First I did the sunset part, then the rainbow, then the ‘everything else’ part. One thing I struggled with was building up color. Because my paint was so thin and I was painting over black, it took me multiple class periods to build up color. I added a black outline and 3d elements to finish it off.
This art piece doesn’t have any symbolism. I don’t like adding too much meaning to my art because I want whoever is looking at it to come up with their own meaning.
The thing that was most difficult for me was painting over the black, specifically in the top left corner. It was just a lot of tedious work that took a long time. If I started over, I would have added a base coat before I painted on the details.
This painting is in either a pop-art or surrealist style, like almost all of my work. Something unique about this piece is that it is more cartoon-ish than what I would usually do. The colors are flat and all the shapes are outlined with black. I love the way that the rainbow and sun parts came out.
"Collages 1,2 and 3"
4x12" each, Acrylic on Watercolor Paper, 2022
I didn’t really have an idea of whatI was going to do with these. I just smeared some paint around until I was happy with it.
I started by globbing on different colors to a small piece of watercolor paper. I then smoothed it all out with a palette knife. While that was drying, I cut out some of the faces from a magazine and removed the eyes. I stuck the faces on with glue. I took some watered-down paint and dripped it all over the painting. Finally, I covered the entire thing in mod podge so the faces didn’t start curling. I repeated this project 2 more times. I did the yellow one first, blue second, and red one third. The red one isn’t shown.
Once again, there is no symbolism in these. I want the viewers to come up with their own interpretations of what these mean.
The thing that was most difficult about these was finding enough faces that were both the right size and not ruined. Something I would change is mixing the watered-down paint better.
My collages are in a surreal style, like the vast majority of my paintings. Something unique about these is the process I used to create them. It only took me around 10 minutes to make each. Something I love about this is that it is nearly impossible to make a mistake with this. For example, on the blue one, the watered-down paint wasn’t mixed, so I ended up dropping a chunk of red right on a face. It just ended up looking like a nosebleed.
"Smilie Faces"
9x12", Acrylic on Cardboard, 2022
I wanted to make something a little creepier than the other things I have made, but without the face blood and gimmicks of other creepy things. I wanted to make something off-putting rather than scary.
I started the process by mixing and applying the base color. I then took multiple circle-shaped objects and traced them onto the painting. I added the skin tone and blush, which was probably the hardest part. It took quite a few tries to get the blush to look normal. I painted on the whites of the eyes and drew on everything else with a black paint marker. For the final step, I added 3d mod podge to the eyes to make them shiny.
I really don’t like adding symbolism and meaning if I don’t have to. I want the person viewing my art to come up with their own feelings and opinions on all art.
The most difficult thing about this piece was adding colors to the face. I mixed a blush shade and tried to blend it with a dry base. That didn’t work, so I tried to do it with a brush. That also didn’t work, so finally I used my finger over wet paint and that finally worked. Even then, it took multiple tries per face. If I started over, I would add more faces because there are a lot of empty areas.
This piece is, once again, in a surrealist art style. This is probably the weirdest painting I have made yet, and it would probably be my favorite for that reason.