For sands

Before christmas break, me and Mr. Sands agreed to switch christmas gifts. There was only one rule: you had to make it yourself.  We agreed that we would swap gifts on the first day back from christmas break. Then that sunday night on the last day of break rolled around, and i had no gift, no ideas, and no supplies.  I rushed into my sisters room and took an old canvas she's had under her bed for the past year. I'm sure it wasn't as big as Mr. Sands would have wanted it, but it would have to make due.  I started mixing paints while i was talking to my brother about how I think i needed to branch out from my typical "stretchy skin-esk" figures.  So i made my brother lye down on my bed in a very uncomfortable pose for him.  Since he kept complaining about how his arm was getting tired, i had to work quickly.  I was using colors that were very unusual for me, light blues, pinks, and reds. (Not even purples) after i had finished the figure my painting i wanted to add in a black background to make the figure pop.  I painted in a bluish black on the top and took a step back to look at my progress:

 

Then i was stumped.  I wasn't sure if I was liking where this was going, or what it even was. Still i pressed onward. i then filled in the bottom half with lighter colors, mostly pink and white, and i added touches of a metalic bronze throughout the painting. Then when i tried to draw thick lines on the bottom of the figure, i decided to make it look almost like a shadow, then made it look as if the top was melting and pouring over the figure.

 

I looked at this painting and decided that it was perfect. Done. Nothing else i could ever do to add onto it. UNTILL. I looked down at my pallet and decided i really liked how it looked, the golds, pinks, and blues all running into each other... So i took the pallet paper and pressed it onto the dark background at the top. I LOVED IT. it added texture and made the painting much more balenced and interesting. So then i poured darker colors onto my pallet. Purples, blacks, bronze, even some dark blues and pressed the paper onto the canvas at the bottom: 

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Then i came up with the final final product:

 

Mr. Sands was pretty happy with his painting i think..

(and don't worry Mrs. Rossie, i have a very special gift i've been planning for you too.) 

In a (vital and complex) stability.

One night one of my old childhood friends came to visit me, and while we sat on the couch she began to talk about her new life, while I let her words fill up my mind i twirled a string inbetween my fingers, over my palms, and around my wrist.  I liked the way it looked, the yarn tangling up my fingers. I knew i wanted to get out my camera and photograph it. So a few days later i grabbed some old yarn and began to tangle my self in it. The first step was to wrap my left hand in it completely:

 

this photograph was actually quite difficult to take with one hand and no tripod.  I found a spot next to my window that had the lighting that i wanted then played around with the settings on my camera to get the soft light.  i took several different poses for my tangled hand to be in  :

I decided that the tenser the hand looked, the better.
 the next step i did was to use my right hand to hold the blue string, as it ran off the edge of the shot.  This was the most difficult picture to take, because i had to do it with my left hand.

 

I had only planned on taking these two pictures, but then i had the idea to tangle it up around my hair and then onto my face.  and 50 shots later, i chose these 2 to add into the project: 

 then after complining them together i came up with this

which im not sure how well you can see that on this website. So i plan on printing out each picture and pasting them onto poster board (or something to that effect)

The idea of wrapping the yarn all around me mimics the idea of skin in a way. Yarn is made for hats, scarfs, sweaters and socks, all things that are another layer of protection and offer us warmth and hold us together.