I had a few hours to kill this morning as I wasn’t able to participate in this year’s Record Store Day so to make up for it, I decided to create something.
Since I’m a Presidential history buff and since April 12th, 2011 marked the 150th anniversary of the Civil War, I decided to honor The Great Emancipator with a great silhouette. I made my first painted silhouette last week and loved it so much that I couldn’t wait to get started on another one. I’ve been antsy.
Authentic Victorian silhouettes are cut out from paper so having a painted one isn’t much on authenticity but it’s very easy to do and the effect is great and instantly hangable. The Abraham Lincoln one took less than an hour to do and it looks great. Although this one has a big too much negative space so I just might take it off it’s stretcher bars are put it onto 8×10 bars instead.
I took pictures of the process but I don’t think I’ll put them up. I do promise a tutorial but I’m waiting for my wife to do one as I want to walk through it with someone who’s never done it before so I can adequately explain the process.
I’ve been fascinated by Victorian style silhouettes for a few years now and have always wanted to decorate our home with them. This project, as I mentioned, took less than a half hour to do, cost me $0 (that because I happened to already have the materials), and took a very small amount of skill to do. You don’t have to have an artistic bone in your body to do this. Just a steady hand. I think in the near future I’ll do a step-by-step tutorial on how to make one yourself.
I don’t want to show too much of the details just yet but last night I was finally able to spend some time with the painting after many years. I spent a few hours with actually only one color and I feel like I made some great progress. My biggest task ahead is actually visible in the picture above: Etchmiadzin. You can see the unfinished structure on the right side of the image. That’s where I stopped years ago and I’ll have to get my head back into the realm of painting a bit more before I feel like I can tackle that one.
I took a picture of the part that I’m enjoying most at the moment; behind the cross is a flag drawn up into four squares represents the four Armenian dynasties throughout history: the Bagratuni Dynasty, Arsacid Dynasty, Artaxiad Dynasty, and the Roubinian Dynasty.
Just about 2 or 3 weeks left till it’s unveiled!
Protected: Pari Louyce! My paints wake up.
14 Mar 2011 Enter your password to view comments.
Just a quick note which I’ll expand on later. I will be presenting a painting I did of the entire Armenian history for the first time in public next month at an Armenian school in the valley and will speak briefly about it followed by Q & A afterward. More details will follow.