At the beginning of quarter 4 I set a goal for myself to finish the paintings that I had started this year because I am planning to enter my pieces into the art walk in Montpelier. I also feel uncomfortable when I have unfinished paintings to take home for the summer. Over this past quarter I have been painting when I have time to, I will often write painting as something to do everyday if there was time to. Quite often there was not a lot of time to, and when I did paint I felt forced. There was a point this quarter where I felt like I almost lost my passion to paint and the once vibrant colors I was using now appeared bland. The only paintings I needed to finish were Mother and Child, Giants, and The Laughing Woman.
Mother and Child
Mother and Child is a tribute to all of the caring Mothers in the world and a thank you to my own. She is strong, smart, hardworking, loving, and kind. I owe everything to her because she gave birth to me, and surrounded me with love as I grew. Mother and Child has gone through a lot of changes, it was the one painting that I was making up as I went. I changed the sky color three times, from purple, to blue then finally to orange. In my Mom’s paintings she uses a opposite colors to create contrast and make the picture interesting to the viewer. I decided to incorporate that idea into my piece by making the clouds a turquoise blue, which when seen next to the orange sky has a similar effect as some of my Mom’s paintings.
GiantsGiants is a painting that I started last year, I had a vision of it, meaning the image flashed into my head at one point and I felt obligated to recreate it. When this happens I usually don't have a distinct meaning for it at first, the meaning comes as I spend more and more time creating it. As I was working on this painting the week before the art show the meaning the unveiled itself as how we see ourselves. The Giant behind the mountains is how the boy in the foreground would like to project himself as. The Giant has an air of pride and power which I tried to convey with the body positioning, the head is tilted up making the viewer feel like the giant is bigger. He is made of sand being carried away by the wind. He's being is a mirage because you cannot see where his feet touch the ground and the blue of the sky is bleeding through his sandy body. I was afraid that the meaning this painting would take up was something related to god or a higher power so I added cacti in the foreground to take away from the intensity of the Giant. I have not finished this painting but I have gotten a good chunk of it done. A side note, this is the first non commissioned painting I have done of a man.
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The Laughing WomanThe Laughing Woman is a painting depicting a Mexican American woman in the desert. She is exuding pride, happiness with self and she is growing into her individualities, like her smile lines, her skin color, all of the features that make her her. The woman is standing in the desert in mid day, there is a metal 2 dimensional heart nailed to her chest with blood dripping down her sternum, and her arms are transforming into cacti. I have heard my art being called edgy, angsty and art a teenager would definitely make, but I do not include gore into my paintings to get a reaction out of people. The painting I create is the painting I saw and the blood does not give the painting a negative connotation in my opinion. Blood in my life has for the most part has not been a bad thing. The meaning that I got from this piece was self acceptance, pride, happiness, and having so much light inside of you you could explode. The feeling I get when I think of this painting is like there is an earthquake on the surface of my skin, I feel a swelling of energy in my ribcage, and like there ocotillo branching out of my each of my vertebrae in my spine.
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