Woo yay I finished it! I designated this Thanksgiving break as an art retreat, and it was nice to have this detailed piece completed for my portfolio this year.
Recently, the storytelling mode in my brain has not been fully functional, so I'll be speaking in bullets today.
Art process
• Ideation: Trying to move away from abstract, I went back to painting lists – the eggs depict pieces of art that I've loved recently (which reduced some work for me, since many of the images are copied). The nest concept is inspired by the pigeon who intrude my balcony and our ongoing battle for territory.
• Process: It took me a couple sessions to do the nest, and I'm relieved it came out well. I spent about 16 hours on the 14 eggs. A couple comments on my work environment, I listened to and finished The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo ebook as well as most of The Witchtrials of JK Rowling limited series podcast during this project. Also, the lighting in my apartment is not ideal so I've found that application can be spotty or messy without me realizing it in the moment.
• Overall thoughts: Thanks to recent progress in therapy, I was much less hung up on how perfect/imperfect the output was this time. Having said that, the lowlights are that this piece is not particularly cohesive, and I tend not to like the landscape-y eggs as much (nature is not my forte). The highlights are that the concept is unique and I really like at least half of the eggs. One major thing I contemplated early on was whether I could make the eggs look more 3D, however I think that would require perspective warping, lighting and shadow effects which are well above my skillset.
Egg List
If you recall, one of my first paintings was also vignettes of my favorite media. As before, I will discuss each egg starting from the top right.
(1) Karl Lagerfeld coat: This year's Met Gala Lagerfeld exhibit was beautiful and impressive.
(2) Yayoi Kusama's Death of Nerves: Another great museum piece; this was at M+ in Hong Kong. I did design the shape of the cords myself, inspired by the original.
(3) RM's Indigo: BTS members released solo albums this year, and I covered (my favorite) three in this painting. RM's egg depicts a mashup of two scenes from the Wild Flower music video -- petals in the wind at dusk and firework sparks in the night sky. As mentioned, I generally don't love the natural color palette and had to redo the dusk part once, but Wild Flower and the other music videos from Indigo were stunning and worth representing.
(4) SUGA's D-Day: SUGA's was my favorite concert I attended this year, which is almost blasphemy considering that Taylor Swift also happened. I initially put paintbrush to canvas for the teal jacket from the Haegeum music video, but I was too out of practice with detailed painting, so called an audible to paint the simpler Amygdala music video instead. The lyrics for both Indigo and D-Day are relatively profound.
(5) Jungkook's GOLDEN: Finishing off discussion of BTS, while I wouldn't consider GOLDEN to be the premier album of the year, the mini-concert depicted here was the pinnacle of a fabulous promotion period overall. This purple background was the beginning of Magic Shop, and the staircase was used for a surprisingly entertaining mid-concert chitchat. Good vibes to send us off, as JK and the other remaining members head off to enlistment.
(6) Gold Crown Ornament at Gyeongju National Museum (item 618): I didn't get much historical context on this particular artifact (don't come at me if this symbolizes something bad I don't know about), but it's no surprise this was a memorable museum visit in Korea, as I generally find Korea and dynastic Asian history interesting.
(7) Pickle by Moriah Elizabeth: As one of two art Youtubers featured in this egg collection, Moriah Elizabeth specializes in painting pastel rainbow plushies, and may or may not have a target demographic of <10 year-olds. Regardless, Pickle the Dinosaur is one of her classic characters and I watch her new videos upon release every Friday.
(8) Make Stuff with Stories by Nerdforge: Martina (and Hansi) from their Youtube channel specialize in epic fantasy-inspired creations, and Martina herself is a very talented painter. Depicted is the cover design of their sketchbook merch.
(9) Studio Ghibli scene: One more bonus Youtube-inspired piece, this egg was inspired by the jelly gouache painting videos that I periodically watch, which are so ASMR and clean. The execution turned out way better than I expected (but the egg shape made it hard to maintain straight lines and stay centered overall).
(10) Speckled robin's egg: I just wanted to put a regular egg in. I used the splatter technique, but didn't do it outside like I normally do, out of laziness, so suspect I'll be finding black specks around my dining room area for a bit...
(11) Watercolor sketch: I'm really enamored with a watercolor sketch-y style of tattoo that periodically shows up on r/tattoo. My vignette couldn't capture the thin black lines typical of this style. However, I love how the background turned out, in terms of the colors (which I fortuitously had in leftover paints) and the new technique I used to mimic watercolor texture.
(12) Neon jelly: My favorite nail polish brand, Holo Taco, released fluorescent jelly nail polish this year, and one really aesthetic trend was to layer colors in a plaid pattern. I had to buy cheap craft store acrylic paint for this, so it really brought me back to the OG days of painting the same square five times to get opacity. The result is all bumpy, but I put real holographic nail polish on top, which smoothed it out slightly. The execution is unkempt but the egg is overall very cool.
(13) Dragon scales: I dedicated some time to learning how to paint scales. I want to make scales even more glowy/shiny/dimensional next time, but I'm happy with how this turned out, and think a dragon egg in this nest is awesome.
(14) Dewey beachhouse: Well, my dear friend and book buddy passed away this year, so I painted the view from her guest bedroom (where I always stayed) as an homage. We met when I was in first grade as part of a school reading program, and kept in touch through my childhood and then through her retirement in Dewey Beach. I'm sorry that I'm not better at naturalistic scenery, but the sunset is a callback to one of my paintings that she liked. I really treasured my time with her; may she rest in peace.
"Nest Eggs"
Reference images:
