Learning to Oil Paint

Jillian Laabs

Abstract: My focus on learning to oil paint is rooted in my enjoyment for painting. Since I was a child, painting has become an escape from stress and worry in my daily life. I have never worked with oil paints before, and I wanted to focus on a medium that will allow me to expand my knowledge of the art world further. The piece is inspired by Surrealism, a movement in Art and Literature which is used to release a person's creative potential of their unconscious mind. A lot of what you see when you look up the movement is focused on the juxtaposition of images and how objects and places can be distorted to form or create other images. One of my favorite artists is Salvador Dali­, most people will know him from his works titled 'The Persistence of Memory' and 'Swans Reflecting Elephants.' I was also inspired by Liminal Space, which can be described as a threshold to signal the end of one time or space and the beginning of another. I enjoy these ideas because they allow the artist to perceive a story in one way, but the viewer might observe it as another story or idea. It lets everyone use their own imagination to tell a different story of an image that has been created already. What kind of story do you see?