Friday, July 30, 2010

old picture/new picture

[painting from 1982 (old picture), photo taken this week (new picture)]

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Back in 1982, I was in high school. I enjoyed art quite a bit, painting murals, and participating in the school's art club. The murals were directed by my art teacher, who was Artist-in-Residence for the city of Chicago at that time. We did Trompe l-oeil on the sides of buildings, the tallest of which five stories. That's a lot of scaffolding!

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For my own pleasure, I liked painting surrealistic images with acrylics. One Saturday afternoon I painted this picture while talking to my next door neighbor, window-to-window.

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She was sitting at the bottom of a staircase in her house, and I was in my own room. Chicago gangways are so narrow, you can stand in between and almost touch both houses at the same time. I don't remember how long it took to complete it, but the whole time, the neighbor girl sat very still, at the bottom of the stairs next door.

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I can't say for sure, but judging by how still she sat for me, I wonder if she thought I was painting a portrait of her. She was a pretty girl, and that might have made a good picture. But no, this is just your regular o'l run-of-the-mill flower pitcher with eyeballs.

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f.y.i.

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13 comments:

George said...

I'm impressed -- painting as well as photography. I rather like flowers with eye balls. I'll bet that girl was disappointed that you weren't painting her portrait.

Shammickite said...

Are those actually eyeball flowers? Only found in Chicago I suppose.

SAPhotographs (Joan) said...

Your flowers are weirder than my bug. At least they have two eye. :)

Gaelyn said...

I like your whimsical painting. Thinking of taking it up again?

mommanator said...

what a lovely image! and the picture is great

lime said...

getting to participate in those huge murals must have been exciting, scaffolding and all!

those are some bloomin' wild eyeballs flowers!

Craver Vii said...

Glad you liked it, George. Honestly though, I can't even remember her reaction.

Precisely Shammy. I was, after all, in Chicago when I painted it.

What has two eyes, Joan? Bugs?? What about the ocelli?

Definitely not, Gaelyn. Not for now, at least. I have colored chalk if I feel the urge to dabble.

I tried something different with this photograph Mommanator. I went to RAW instead of JPEG, and then tuned the colors. Those files take up huge amounts of space!

Lime, the climbing was half the fun. They nicknamed me "Spider Man" because I liked to find ways to get to hard-to-reach places up there.

SAPhotographs (Joan) said...

My bugs Craver. :) I must admit that some of them are quite weird and have them at the end of stalks very similar to your flowers. LOL!!

imac said...

3 eye balls from outer Jar.
Nice one Craver.

This Is My Blog - fishing guy said...

Craver: I hope at least it was her eyeballs.

EG CameraGirl said...

Run of the mill eyeball flowers. Oh Yeah! Right. :)

Craver Vii said...

"Outer Jar," Imac? I don't get it.

I do not recall the color of her eyes Fishing Guy. Probably hazel. It's okay though. She wasn't my girlfriend or anything.

Yes of course, EG. Don't they grow these up there? The florist's card would say something like, "Here's looking at you, Kid."

Wendy said...

You are very talented! Do you still paint? If not I think you should!