Quick Hit

For a friend’s housewarming, I painted the outfit my friend wore in her recent Kathak dance performance, which I attended with that friend group.

I was so diligent on this project! I was inspired by another friend's suggestion on a Tuesday, did a sketch to test viability, and ordered supplies that night. Picked up supplies on Wednesday, painted it all that night, and applied isolation coat/varnish (first time for me!) on Thursday and Friday. Gifted it during the friend's housewarming on Saturday (which went until 2am doing absolutely nothing in the most chill way possible).

I’m not posting this painting to the IG, but still wanted to document a few random thoughts on the process:

-Gifting: Before this, I’ve made 2.5 other paintings for other people as gifts. In general, I don’t like to paint for gifts due to a combination of (1) lack of inspiration, (2) not liking the expectation, and (3) not wanting to give away my creations, legitimately. But this one was fun because I was super excited about the idea. (My vision for the subject matter, pose, medium came really quickly.) I was also warmed up from my painting retreat, which made it lower activation energy.

-Uncertainty: Sometimes I surprise myself with how easy paint is to work with. For the two hours it took me to complete this, it was looking wonky for a good hour. But the amount of control and ability to “erase”/adjust indefinitely using acrylics, really helped in making the angles and proportions look right in the end. I was extremely unsure whether I could do it, since it is a larger human figure than the characters in my Christmas card series, but it felt similar enough that there was hope to be worth a try!

-Medium: I knew immediately that I wanted to paint on a ceramic coaster to make into a magnet. This might be my first time painting on anything that’s not canvas. But having prepped with many base coats of gesso on the unglazed side, the painting experience really wasn’t much different. To assemble the magnet, I superglued 3 small neodymium magnets to the back, which I tested to be the right strength.

-Varnish: This was also my first time trying varnish, but I felt it was important to protect the piece. My varnishing did the job, though the edges were uneven. There's more I'd have to figure out to be confident enough to varnish my other paintings. I'd need to find the right larger brush, and solve the issues of dust and streakiness. I also learned that the varnishing process is lengthy. Isolation coat should be put on after the painting is completely dry which could be several days post-painting. Varnish is then put on a day or more after the isolation coat.

The part of my vision that didn't pan out was that I wanted everyone to sign the back, but markers wouldn't stick to the shiny glaze of the original coaster. That would have been perfect though if it worked out.

But yes, this was a fun and productive gift project. I don’t have an urge to paint another gift. It is difficult. But no one’s asking either so I don’t have to worry about it. :)

It turns out, this is the best photo I have. Don't mind the shadows.

Composition of Identity... Unironically

I’ve been experiencing good change in small ways recently, and of course discovering that any change that I don’t anticipate, even if it’s good, feels weird! I felt this with Thanksgiving painting retreat this year – while painting has always been a happy escape, I didn’t need an escape this year (although two and a half days of being quasi-off the grid was nice). I think this has been a good year – I’m happier and less "what am I doing?" existential overall, and perhaps have found different methods to self-regulate as well. But it does make me a little nostalgic for the more neurotic headspace of past painting projects; where did she go? Should we search for her??

Ideation: Brainstorming the creative vision felt rusty and rushed this time. This painting is a version of my original idea from last year for an underwater seascape with fish characters from my childhood like Spiderman. Since I already painted the background last year, I was constrained to this theme and decided to reimagine the fish to express things I care more about presently. (I'm beginning to think that I think about myself too much, but this is what I care about.) Namely, I have been thinking about the evolution and reconciliation of my East coast and West coast personalities, so the fish represent different aspects of who I am or was, with my success-oriented experiences represented in the fish along the bottom-right to top-left diagonal, and my freer, curiosity-oriented self on the cross-diagonal, generally. I suddenly feel like I’m thinking and talking about myself too much. Hope no one has to read this. 

Painting process: 

-Color: I didn’t have a clear plan for color, so I played with muting the jellyfish and turtle colors with more blue tones, as an underwater scene would realistically do. I potentially should have muted the coral reef the same way (although color mixing would have extended and already tedious process.) I also found it difficult/annoying to mix an aqua blue, that had enough green tint but not desaturated, so there are some wonky bits in the background due to that difficulty. 

-Composition: On composition, I scattered the fish evenly, as the canvas was too narrow to do much else. If I had the space or played around with it more, having one larger cluster of fish might have conveyed better flow. There were also some holes I had to fill on the fly at the end, where the seahorse, dust motes, and skeleton fish now sit. They are welcome additions.

-Illustrations: In terms of the fish, it took about 30-45 mins per fish mainly driven by needing to layer for opacity. The “Taylor Swift” fish took the most revisions, and is likely my least favorite because it doesn’t resemble the inspiration. The hiking, Linus and skeleton fish are the next-least favorites, however the variance in quality among the fish in this painting is overall tighter than my previous egg painting, so I’m happy about that. The only other thing is that I’m not sure whether the back foot of the turtle makes sense, but not overthinking it.

 

List of fish (top to bottom; fish marked in asterisk for those representing key formative points): 

-*Green/white (“Consulting” fish): Representing my time working at OW, inspired by a work outfit from that time – a ruffled green blouse and an expensive Kate Spade scalloped cream cardigan. (Time period: OW) 

-Airplane (“Aviation” fish): Representing my aviation affiliation at OW. (Time period: OW) 

-Pastel X (“Pastel Kaws” fish): Inspired by one of my favorite manicures I've done on myself (sparkly pastel holos with white X), which itself was inspired by the popular Kaws bears, one of which was in the lobby of the OW New York office and is also a key feature in RM’s office decor/jhope’s album art. (Time period: OW / my visual art preferences) 

-Scuba diving (“Scuba diving” fish): Representing the adventurous excursions I've experienced while traveling (and conversely, the lack of opportunities/friends to go scuba diving again with these days). Also, I was pretty tickled by the idea of a fish in scuba gear. (Time period: OW / my adventurous preferences) 

-Kangaroo (“Kangaroo” fish): Representing animal encounters that I enjoyed while traveling, especially solo traveling. (Time period: OW / my solo travel preferences)

-Sunset cityline (“Hong Kong cityline” fish): Representing the Hong Kong cityline during golden hour and my heritage ties to that place. (Time period: throughout)

-Linus (“Linus” fish): Representing one of my mom’s favorite characters. (Time period: childhood / throughout) 

-Purple/sparkles (“Magical” fish): Representing magic as a genre of shows/books that I love. I had Hotel del Luna and Elantris in mind, though the palette also unintentionally reminds me of Tangled. (Time period: early adult) 

-*Squiggly lines (“Calculus” fish): Representing studying in high school, particularly inspired by note-taking for BC Calc. (Time period: high school) 

-Yellow/bow (“Taylor Swift” fish): Supposedly inspired by Taylor Swift Love Story, which was one of my favorite songs in high school. I tried so many iterations to depict her dress from the music video that just didn't work. I landed on a simple design to capture the vintage gold color palette and added bow/swirls in the color of Speak Now album for visual interest. 

-Green/black (“Hiking” fish): Representing my new lifestyle habits since moving to the Bay Area, inspired by a current hiking outfit. It’s a green cropped jacket, lululemon leggings, and a grandma-style visor hat. This outfit is fairly mismatched, but I don’t seem to care. (Time period: current) 

-*Gray hoodie (“Gray hoodie” fish): Representing the general casualness of the work+life dress code (and attitude) of the Bay area which I have adopted since moving here, inspired by my oversized COS hoodie from Korea which still has an edge of chic imo. (Time period: current) 

-White llama (“RJ” fish): Illustrating the character RJ (from BT21 by Jin of BTS), of whom I have a lot of merch because RJ is cute and easy to match with my aesthetic. (Time period: pandemic to current / my preferences for self-care) 

-*Purple whale (“BTS whale” fish): Illustrating the BTS Tiny Tan whale, which I have in plushie form in original packaging. (Time period: pandemic to current) 

-Orange/cream (“Hamtaro” fish): Illustrating Hamtaro, the character and stuffed plushie that my sisters and I played with when we were younger. (Time period: later childhood) 

-*Strawberry (“Strawberry/TCS” fish): Representing a strawberry-patterned outfit I wore when I was very young, as well as a plaid hunter-navy tail as a call back to my middle school TCS school uniform. TCS was probably lower t traumatic, and therefore very formative. (Time period: early childhood + middle school)

-Skeleton (“Skeleton” fish): Representing a minimalistic sketch style of art that I like, but also because a transparent fish looks cool. (Time period: n/a)

"Ocean Depths"