I've gotten to the point in my post graduate life (with no job yet) where I want to start selling my work but am on the fence about selling old work. One reason for this is that I don't have much confidence in some of my old work therefore I don't want to put something I see as lower quality in my shop. Another reason is that some of my old work was made without the intention to sell, so I just don't have the heart to give some of it away. And so, instead of going through a bunch of old work and trying to sell stuff that's already made, I've been going back to some past projects and have begun rethinking/reworking and sampling things to begin producing products I could sell.
I wanted to start doing this through a series of "limited edition" products and fine art paintings.
During my last quarter at SCAD (which you can read about in this previous blog post), I created a collection of completely hand drawn/painted prints to reflect on my feelings during the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. I've already talked about the meanings and the intention of the imagery in this project in that previous blog post so if you'd like some extra background, please go read that first.
I titled that project the "Pleasant Thoughts Print Collection" with the patterns being intended for handbags (pictured t0 the left). I wanted the meaning of this print collection to be partially given through the physical act of traditional painting and drawing. Creating by hand is, in a sense, a kind of therapy and that's what I intended for this collection. It was a therapeutic personal response to feelings of loneliness and anxiety during quarantine. The issue with it was translating those completely hand done repeats into digital images. The process of doing so ended in an image that looked quite messy. That's why you don't see this project in my portfolio (yet).
I have been reworking this project as a series of paintings on canvas and old handbags to soon be some of the first products in my Etsy shop!
I, of course, started with sketching...
My first idea was to add the "stepping stones" motif. In past daily practice drawings from April, I had done this motif mixed with the palms so I started revisiting those a bit on top of the original project in these sketches. I saved all the acrylic paints I had mixed back in April so, in the second image above, I considered adding a color. Something I wanted to push a bit more than I did in the original was texture, so I also started to experiment with adding pumice gel medium. My main goal from most of these sketches was to see how I could more directly redo the original prints. The last image has text from a line in some preliminary writing I did in exploration for the concept. I'm still toying with the idea to add text. If anything, I'm thinking it might be fun to add it to the inside flap of one of the bags.
I did start to paint one of the handbags (pictured to the right) but realized I was getting ahead of myself and went back to sketching. My plan from there was to focus on the canvases first so that I can start thinking about how I want to paint the bags. This allows me to use the canvases as further exploration before finally getting to the bags as they need to be more planned out. I can layer and cover up "mistakes" with the canvas paintings more with pumice gel medium, molding paste, and more paint whereas I can't really do that as much or, in the case of the texture mediums, at all with the handbags.
Apart from those texture mediums, I also used different ways of applying india ink, dry brushstrokes, and spray paint to achieve the variety of texture I wanted. Below are some process images and some sneak peaks into the final paintings.
I have two paintings already done, and am currently working on the third. I plan on doing at least two more on canvas before finally getting to the handbags.
I can't wait to add this to my portfolio and to finally make an Etsy shop! Stay tuned for updates!
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