still life

1999
oil pastel & turpentine on bristol board
14" x 17"

the korean woman i took art lessons from my senior year of high school tried to teach me as many different techniques and styles as possible so that i'd have a diverse and interesting portfolio to send to prospective colleges. this piece was done in a style that i never again used, but i appreciate having it in my repertoire. when i was creating this piece, i was reminded of when my sister and i were little and would draw colorful pictures with cray-pas and then go over them in black. we would use toothpicks to scrape parts of the black off, which would expose the colors beneath. i basically had to do that with this and, in addition, used turpentine to blur out the background. it isn't, by any means, one of my favorites—i don't particularly like the brown—but it was a fun learning experience.