I cannot express how it feels to have completed this project. I began the FRESH series in 2021, because I wanted to paint something happy and colorful; a literal way to brighten up the gloomy start to my year. I don’t want to reminisce too much on what had been going on in my life at the time, but to put it simply, I started off 2021 as a very heartbroken girl, and it led to my desire to shove myself back into my art. While I was an art student, the only art I was making was something assigned to me as homework or classwork, my art began to feel more like a manufactured product than a passion. These brightly colored fruits were a passion project intended to trick my brain into being happy. I also wanted to use watercolor, a medium which I have never been the most comfortable or confident in. The goal of this project was not only to help my mood, but help me grow in my capabilities as an artist.
My mom’s influence also played a large part in this project. She always wanted me to make her some pretty, food-related art to hang in her kitchen, and she also loved the color orange. With this in mind, the concept for my first painting was born. Unfortunately, she passed away soon after I had started the project. It took me seven months to finish Orange, as the loss made it difficult for me to bring myself to finish something that was intended as a gift for her. Looking back, it feels like there was just one day where I woke up from my grief, and pushed myself to finish the paintings. Maybe my dad’s constant nagging and questioning about when the painting was going to be done helped, but it was mostly just annoying. Ultimately, I knew deep down I had to continue with the project my mother would have loved so much.
The process was intensive, but I loved the thought and energy I found myself putting into it. For the sizing I scaled them to the fruit featured and what I felt made the most sense. Blue is the smallest painting because blueberries are the smallest fruit. Determining the scaling, cutting all the paper, and taping all the borders were the first steps. The initial pencil sketches on the paper were drawn mirrored. If I drew an oval for a kiwi in the top left corner, the same oval would be drawn in the bottom right corner. Some of the sizing was even calculated, the grapes in Purple are all roughly 2.5’’ long and 1.25’’ wide. Once I finished the pencil sketch I would go over the outlines in Micron pen, then wait a day for it to be dry before going through and erasing the pencil marks. Once that was done I began painting.
As aforementioned, watercolor paint was not my strong suit, and on top of that I did not use specialized watercolor paper for this project. These paintings happened in layers, which I spread out over a number of days because I was concerned about ruining the paper with the amount of water I was using for the lightest parts of the painting. After the painting portion was done, I went back through with my thicker Micron pens to darken back up the outlines, and used finer Microns to add the little details to the pieces that needed them. Finally, after letting the ink dry I peeled the border and hoped that neither the paint nor ink had bled under, and that the tape would not rip apart the paper underneath.
Yes, I 100% over complicated the process, and I made plenty of mistakes along the way, but I was able to finish Orange mid-summer and it created a domino effect for me. If I had any doubt about this series before, they disappeared once I'd finished the first piece. These paintings did make me happy - it wasn’t a trick anymore. I finished Blue before I returned to school in the Fall, and to this day is probably my favorite painting. Green was finished on my 22nd birthday, Purple last summer, Red in November, and Yellow just a couple of weeks ago. I found time in all the in-between moments of life to come back to these paintings; and that is ultimately what I take the most pride in. Two years now and it’s finally finished. I don't think I have ever been so committed to anything in my life, ever. It's overwhelming, the moment I added the last painting on my easel with the rest I found myself standing there, both laughing and crying. No matter what else has been going on in my life over the past couple years, I found a way to come back to this series, even if not everyone understood how much it meant to me.
To see the series in full: https://www.gothicrayofsunshine.com/fresh
コメント