Hands

Artist Statement:

The subject of this image is the hands. The setting is the waterfall painted on the hands which is meant to resemble peace and relaxation. I asked my friend if I could paint a picture using acrylic paint on her hands. In order to include my concentration, personal landscape, the painting had to be an example of that. I have a picture of a waterfall that I took two summers ago that I am proud of which gave me the inspiration to paint a waterfall. I took my acrylic paint and paint brushes and once I had painted the waterfall, I decided to include the sun and some blending of warm colors in the sky also. A little rubber ducky too, to add contrast. After that, I put the image into photoshop and used the clone stamp to fix some of the bad painting job(sun) and cropped out the background a bit.

This image showcases the compositions of high key lighting and low horizon. I used quite bright colors to create the painted part and had light shining directly on it from many directions when I took the photo. I painted the sun as low horizon, so I could add more color and make the image look more pleasing overall. The painting didn't come out as perfectly as I would have preferred so I used the clone stamp in the photoshop app to make my sun looks a little better. I also tried removing the background and putting a blank canvas behind but I didn't like the way it looked, I felt like the plain background sort of made the hands look fake.

The meaning of this image is to hold on to things that are important to you. The picture of the waterfall, the one that inspired me to paint the one in the photo above, holds good memories. Memories were made the day I took that photo. This means that that photo holds my memories, and the photo I created is a physical way of showing that. The thing about this image that bothers me is that my painting skills are not very good. I had to use the photoshop app to make the sun look better. I also wish that the photo had a different background but I couldn't find one that suited it. In the future, I would probably have a more artistic friend do the painting and I would spend more time trying to find a proper background.