Two Junes ago, Megan, Kara and I went to Chicago for a best friend weekend of deep dish pizza, aquariums, and a Cubs game. While we were there, we also went to an art museum. We wandered in, saw some classic - American Gothic and this diner painting whose name I can't recall.
American Gothic
Diner Painting
Me and Kara looking cute
Then we stumbled across one of the coolest exhibits I have seen - art by Roy Lichtenstein. I was immediately a fan. Similar to my love of Andy Warhol and Romero Britto - Lichtenstein's art work is colorful and totally unique. Also similar to my love for Warhol and Britto - I can't afford any of his work. But, as with Britto, I can recreate his work.
Drowing Girl by Roy Lichtenstein
Upon seeing Drowing Girl (pictured to the right), I was immediately enchanted. It's Oil and Magna on canvas. I don't know what Magna is, but it sounds cool. Like magma, but art stuff! I don't know exactly why but this painting just speaks to me. Maybe similar to the theme of my last post, I get her. She's beautiful and probably awesome and jerkface Brad has done something to her. Maybe he isn't returning her texts, or is leading her on, or maybe he has decided he no longer wants to do anything with her, and she is drowning, and rather then letting him know she would just drown. The perfect metaphor for dating. Cause dating can be a stupid power game. If someone rejects you, you don't want them to "win" by knowing they upset you. Or you don't want to seem to easy, you have play hard to get. And it's overwhelming and annoying and stupid. We all have moments where it gets like that. And to see a beautiful and just ridiculous piece of art that embodies all that is pretty cool.
So naturally I want this hanging somewhere where I can see it every day and just smile at a little dose of levity. I do think dating is a ton of fun, but you have to be able to laugh at yourself when ridiculous things happen. At my party this past Saturday I was telling some friends about the guy who blew off our date because he "got bit by a tick" and then later tried to flirt with me by using the way he rejected me - singing me the Brad Paisley song "I'd like to check you for ticks". That is dating comedy gold.
So almost 15 months after falling in love with the painting, I have finally sat down tonight to start working on this. I want it to be as perfect as possible so I can hang it in my room next to my Andy Warhol print of the screenprinted guns (its a pink print which makes it girly). So for this one, I sat down this evening and sketched it out to scale on several pieces of paper which I will then cut to use as stencils on the canvas. It's going to be awesome, and I am very excited for this project. I can only hope that I can start dating someone named Brad.
My Sketch
Another Sad Lichtenstein Girl
Close up
And all this comes to the lesson of the day. While I was working on this, I had another canvas out and started painting something on it. I also have an open wound on my hand from the ice cream cake I made for my birthday. I was finishing it up Friday night with my friend Larissa. We taste testing the Jell-o shots and both had a couple hard ciders. I was a little toasty and decided to scrap the excess ice cream that had melted along the side of the serving platter off with a really sharp knife. I also decided to do this scraping with my right hand in the direction of my left hand. So naturally I cut two of my fingers open. I also ran out of Hello Kitty bandaids today so the wound was just open to the elements as I was painting. I got acrylic paint in my wounds. It was horrible.
LESSON OF THE DAY: Bandage your fingers wounds before painting. Or if you don't have bandaids, just don't get acrylic paint in your cuts.
So that's that. I've grown as a person today and I would also like to share with you that I am in desperate need of a desk (see picture to left). I typed this entire entry while sitting on the floor which reeks of beer because someone spilled a beer on my carpet and I haven't cleaned it up. In fact, that leads me to another lesson for the day.
SECOND LESSON OF THE DAY I JUST REALIZED NOW: Don't be a dirtbag Julie, clean spilled beer up from your carpet.
Yup, productive Monday.