Imaginary

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Close-up
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Please excuse my poor photography skills and also the glare on the image. My teacher put the painting in a plastic frame and I'm afraid I will tear the picture if I try to take it out. This was the last project I was given before Christmas Break in my painting class. We were required to make something surrealistic. I had an idea I wanted to use for a long time of a little girl in a box where everything around her is beautiful and peaceful while everything outside the box is chaotic. I finally found an opportunity to use this idea. The girl is modeled after my friend who sat beside me in class. She was absolutely thrilled when I asked her if I could use her as a model. I aimed for a Wonderland feel so I gave her clothes that resembled Alice's. The title I chose was from a song by Evanescence called Imaginary. The lyrics suited the picture well, but my teacher ignored my title and gave it something like "Far Away Place". I thought it was rather cliche. I spent very long hours working on this and almost missed the due date when we came back. It was a hit though and went to two art contests. It did not make the first one (Scholastics) but I made it to the second of three rounds in the Excel contest. Then the piece went to the art show at the end of the year and was almost nominated for a frame. I think I came in second place. Surprisingly, this is not one of my favorite paintings that I have ever done nor do I think it is one of the best, but apparently it is. If I can do this well my sophomore year, I hope I can go even further the last few years of high school. The best part was when the piece was in the art show and my friend who modeled for me told me her mother pointed out how the girl looked strangely like her. *laughs*
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Although I wanted it to be a child, the girl ended up looking older than I wanted and it still bothers me to this day. It defeated the purpose of childhood innocence but it's too late to change anything now. I had the devil's time trying to figure out how to go about painting the trees. I struggled with a technique for the bark and finally found one that suited me after several days of failures. I probably had the most fun with the clouds inside the box. I watered down the paint and lightly dabbed it into cotton ball shapes. The grass still doesn't set well with me but I was running out of time. I also had a lot of trouble with the red sky because I could not mix the same shade of red twice so I ended up painting it at least four times. And I will never be satisfied with the lava. I had no clue how to work with it, but my teacher liked it so I am content I suppose. *laughs* I remember that halfway through painting it, I dropped a paper towel that had red paint on top of the picture. There was an enormous smear across the sky and trees. I was depressed for the longest time until I fixed it. I came back from break beaming because you couldn't tell anything had happened. *whistles* Wow, this painting has a history. *laughs*
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Painted December of '07.
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Tempera paint.
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Picture (C) Alice Falling