sunflower smile: return with elixir

 

materials: acrylic paint, cardboard, sharpie

processes: i began with a picture I took of my friend, then I used a polarized version of that picture and painted the shadows. I then painted highlights, details, and cleaned up lines with acrylic pens and sharpie.

 ideas: I started this painting with a sketch of Ada, one of my good friends. Since the point of my portfolio is to break down stereotypes that surround women and flowers, I thought that a good idea was to break one surrounding sunflowers: the fact that they are typically associated with blondes. This stereotype makes some sense, in the perspective of one who is just looking at hair color, but when I asked some of my friends if they knew anyone whose smile is "sunny", they all named blondes. To break this down, I painted a picture of my friend, Ada, because to me, her smile is like sunshine. The background is of an urban environment, because Ada is a girl who loves the city and I sometimes see sunflowers growing in cracks in the sidewalk, and flourishing wherever  they're planted.