Guidelines: Create a piece of artwork using only one tool.
Exhibition date: Saturday, March 17th at Sweet Water Organics in Bay View WI.
Here is the finished piece I created for this challenge:
Title: "City Commute"
Date: March 2012
Size: 24" x 32"
Materials: Acrylic paint, 16, 20, and 22 gauge wire on stretched canvas
The One Tool: American Painter Golden Nylon Round #3 Paintbrush
Concept Idea: To create a bicycle silhouette made out of wire using a paint brush as my tool for shaping the wire. This wire sculpture will then be attached to a stretched canvas which I have created the scenery/backdrop for by using that same single paint brush.
I spent about 4 weeks working on this piece. The background was first painted black, and I worked the rest of the colors up from that. The brush I used was very small; I picked it so I would be able to get a slightly detailed painting, but also force myself to use many layers of paint to build up the colors of the scenery. Once I had the painting completely finished, I started working on creating the wire bicycle sculpture. My original idea was to just have the silhouette of the bicycle attached to the painting, but after I finished the bike and held it up to the canvas I realized it needed to have a rider to give the whole piece a sense of action. Luckily I had chosen a small brush, who's thin handle provided a starting point to wrap the wire around to create hair for the rider. Safety first - the rider was also given a helmet. The final touch of wire added to the piece was the radio tower I attached to the top of one of the buildings. This helped connect the city scape in the background to the wire bicycle rider in the foreground.
No piers, wire cutters, or tin snips were used (or harmed) in the making of this piece. Guidelines adhered to; mission accomplished.
