Stars & Stripes Project

Artist Statement

The main idea that guided this artwork was only using the colors of the American flag and incorporating stars and stripes. For this work, I was inspired by the song American Pie. For example, the music notes in the sky along with the stars from the American flag relate to the lyric from the song that goes "The day the music died". The music notes are being burned in the fire which symbolizes music dying. If you look at the people's hands they are holding whiskey and rye like the lyrics "Them good old boys were drinking whiskey and rye". The flames are from the lyrics "And as the flames climbed high into the night". One of the people is wearing a jester hat which relates to the several references to jesters throughout the song. The people are saying "this will be the day that I die" from the lyrics, "And singing, 'This'll be the day that I die'".

The material I used to create this artwork was photoshop. I used the ellipse tool and paint bucket tool as well as the paintbrush tool the most. For the stars in the sky, I wanted them to be the exact stars seen on the American flag so I grabbed an image from online and edited out the background. I then copy and pasted the star over and over to make many of them and used the paint bucket tool to make each one red or blue. I also did the same thing with the music notes because I wanted them to look like real music notes that are seen on music papers.

The process for starting this work started with creating a background layer. I started with the flames. I took an image of flames and then removed the background and altered the colors to red white and blue. I also adjusted and drew on some things I wanted to change. I added a second layer and put the people over the flames. I then added the stars and the music notes all as separate layers. I created more layers for the whiskey and rye as long as a layer for the text. I chose these artistic choices because I wanted to draw what I pictured the song as. I made the text the biggest thing that sticks out the most because the line "this'll be the day that I die" is repeated the most throughout the song.