magicbeans. nothing if not awkward.

i got up this morning to go to painting, and my van was parked in by someone else in my building. grrr. so i had to drive george's car to class. but that wasn't too bad, it was a nice change to go from a full-size van to a teeny little sub-compact.

the painting that i'm working on in class is from a photo that i took in high school. the photo's basically about emptiness and depression, that sort of thing, and so really the painting is too. the idea was to do a black and white painting and then glaze colours over it. the colours in mine are very muted to fit the mood. my teacher tried to convince me that it needed something as a center of interest. a brightly coloured rock, or a ribbon, or something. i tried explaining to him that adding something simply for the sake of visual interest would just look forced. he went so far as to say that if i didn't add something, my grade would suffer. not in those words, exactly, but that was the gist.

i stepped back and looked at it. and thought about it. and really it did seem to need something. i thought maybe i could put a pin on the jacket. so i started working on that idea. then it hit me. i could add a touch of irony to the whole thing by making the focal point of this depressing painting a smiley face button. it's a little odd, but kinda neat.