I did it! I did it! I did it! I finished my silhouette last night! It's not at all what I planned, but I am loving the end result. Last week when the silhouette I planned for this project just wasn't working, I started a new sketch and decided to give it a try on heavier paper. Once that worked, I just knew I had to make something completely different and I was pleasantly surprised to experience it come together quickly and naturally.
My punk rock silhouette is exactly the kind of piece that I love to make - lots of color, unexpected elements and tiny details that are nit-picky but necessary. I am so pleased that it's completed not only on time, but early, as this is a piece for the Cloth Paper Scissors reader's challenge, due in email form in less than two weeks if I want to enter my piece (which I do!) I've never entered a reader's challenge before, although a few years ago I did complete a reader's challenge well after the challenge ended because it sounded so cool (check out the CPS DisCO project - really neat.)
This piece is 6 x 9 inches on canvas. Of course it's mixed media - I used acrylic paint, collage, kite string, twine, safety pins, furniture tacks, beads and embroidery floss. Oh, and some stamping on the background - really simple stamping - I used an eraser and some string to create the gray-on-black background.
I am incredibly proud of this piece. It wasn't always easy, although it did flow pretty nicely once the idea got started. One very hard part was getting the safety pins onto the canvas, as I pinned the silhouette to the canvas. You might think this would be easy, like pinning on fabric, but taut canvas and a mostly completed silhouette that you don't want to destroy with pin holes aren't the easiest to pin through artfully!
I learned a few things from making this piece. First, sometimes you just need to do something extreme. I started out with an intact silhouette of a punk rocker. I went for a walk one day and had the idea to use safety pins and just knew I had to rip the silhouette into pieces, even though I had worked for a while to get to the point I was at with the completed silhouette cut-out. I can't imagine not using safety pins on this now! Second, I like high quality paint. I like neon colors, but I didn't want to spend a lot on paint that may not have a lot of future use (although...I really do like neon colors...) I didn't buy expensive paint and the end result wasn't exactly what I wanted, as I usually buy pretty decent paint for classes and projects. I ended up using a gloss medium/varnish product to give the silhouette some shine and a richer look. The paint I used was really matte and dry-looking. Finally, I know I am becoming a better artist. I took an idea, changed it, had a new idea and executed it pretty closely to how I envisioned that new idea in my head. I know that this is real progress.
So what's next? My reward for the completion of this is reading through my next issue of Cloth Paper Scisors and signing up for my next two art classes at the museum. I have to reward art with more art.
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