First, there was a piece of melamine and some paint. Then, there was a beautiful painting, very simplistic, of a silhouette of a woman in a garden, with the planets overhead. She was black, most of the lines were blue, the flowers were red, and the background was black.
It was scratched up by people who have no respect for me or my artwork. This is fairly typical, except they really did a number on it. So, it was repainted. It was rescratched, had a bicycle leaned against it even, and so it was repainted; the cats did it no justice, so, again, it was repainted.
You get the picture!
I started painting it in 1996, I believe. It’s still not done, for every time I think I’m done, someone comes by and pulls the jewely, which I had decided to add to it for textural interest, off; or they scratch it some more; or they drill holes in it and use it to block drafts.
No, I am not kidding!
It gets a little more ornate with every painting, as I have to come up with ways to cover over the scratches and such, and then blend in whatever it is I did to it.
This is not the painting, per say. This is a picture of the main part of the painting, which I then added to on the sides, digitally painted in a lot of the scratched places with color and shapes, then had to use various filters and such to get the new stuff to look somewhat like the old stuff. It was a LOT of hard work, hours worth, but, I’m very happy with the result.
It takes several of the same elements in the original painting, adds in some new elements (the stylized monkey faces), and is altered all the way around enough that it can be said to be entirely original. If you saw the painting, you’d recognize it was by the same artist and had some of the same elements, but, it is obviously not the same piece!
Also, I am happy, as this one is bound to be harder for people to scratch up!
I also created another digital painting that incorporated a manipulated digital image from the same original painting, which I am uploading today. I hope to make more. One thing I very much enjoy doing, is true mixed media artwortk of this sort.
Oh, and for the criminally insane out there: monkey dream only refers to the happy accident of creating what looks, to me, like stylized monkeys wearing crowns. So, if you think there’s a racial slur involved, get your head out of your butt and read this again!
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