Expressive Portrait:Valintyne

This ended up being an expressive self-portrait.

The mask on the face is a symbol of how I view certain things about myself. I'm blinded to alot...yet I feel insighful. I speak...but no one hears me. People see me as this...cliched object...but i'm different.

I feel like I'm stretched thin; always trying to strive and do the impossible...but I feel like I fail. I feel like I try to do too many things that I can honestly take.

Kim recommended I bold the lines in the "matter;" I would have, but I was afraid to touch this after it was finished.

The blur effect was created unintentionally and I nursed it to create a nice shadow/silloette effect.

Maybe the smeared colors mean I feel like I'll be eventually forgotten...I don't know.

It turned out really nice though.

Winter Scene: "Wyntur Krissmus"

This piece is truly a Frankenstein monster; It has been randomly pieced together over a span of 2-3 months and became a Christmas scene within a couple of days. When creating the tree I took Van Gogh's "Starry Night" into creative consideration. It almost looks as if it is underwater; the seafoam green strangely offsets the typical Christmas look.

This is the first piece I've painted to be done in layers; I did the background first, and everything else just followed. I did no planning on it.

I think that adds to its mysterious nature...I don't know how it really came to be, so I can't explain it all too well.

This was done in acrylic. I plan on taking a risk with my next piece; attempting to use oils.

The title is spelled wrong to compliment the piece. Christmas is not this strange corperate beast it has been turned into...this is just a mild mix of color and cliche.

Winter Scene: The Christmas Present.

This is my winter scene, and although it is not finished, I am pleased with it. I did the sketch in my sketchbook with pencil and was planning to copy it onto something bigger, but then I realized that I liked the way it looked on the brown paper, so I left it. My mom always used to wrap our Christmas presents in brown paper when I was a little girl, so this reminds me of my past Christmases in a way.

I am going to put a Christmas tree behind the little girl, as well as finish the rug… I also thought I may put a kitten in there somewhere; I don't know why, but it just seems to need one. =]

Christmas Piece: Untitled

Christmas is a time of mixed messages in our culture. However strong the marketing/the secular side of the holiday may be in America, I still wanted to make it clear that the nativity scene was important. Recycling is a nifty thing to do with art, and so all the things I used in this piece were trash to begin with (except the tape, of course). The nativity is made from newspaper/black & white because that keeps it subtle/shows how the $$making part of Christmas usually dominates. Making the foil star & the sheep was probably my favorite part of this project, because I like shiny things, & the sheep are cute. Actually, I feel kind of ridiculous for not just painting a cute Christmas picture & making something with a message... still, I can't help what came out of my hands...that's what's up. The end.