Birth
Year Completed: 2025
Medium / Materials: Old advertisements, prints, and newspaper clips, canvas, pencil, acrylic paint, oil paint, sea sponges, paintbrushes
Dimensions: 22” x 28”
Status: In Personal Collection
Series / Collection: Experience through Insects
Exhibition:
The Process
After choosing a reference image and organizing where I wanted the bug-egg-babies to be placed, I explored a local vintage store to find old prints. I chose prints that abstractly captured the experience of being born and experiencing life and society for the first time. Then, I cut the prints into pieces and collaged them onto my pencil layout of a 1920’s hospital nursery, organizing prints based on value to mimic the final lighting of the space. I also ensured that the most important prints would be visible once I started painting.
After creating my base, began layering diluted acrylic paint in shades of gray to form the bassinets that the bug-egg-babies would sit. I referenced my reference image with a grid over it using a ruler to help create the correct proportions. I first created general shapes, and then added brighter highlights with lighter paint to add definition. I utilized pieces of sponge to add a more weathered texture to the painting to create a old and weathered effect. I drew the metal bars of the bassinets in with pencil.
Once the background was done, I created the egg shapes with tan acrylic paint. Then, I added details, shadows, and highlights using oil paint. Then I added some blankets to make one of the eggs look less like it was floating. Finally, I painted in my main “hatching” bug in golden acrylic. Then, I added in fine details using oil paint to give its legs, back furs, and core definition.
Their were many revisions I made during the process of creating this piece in order to get it to look how I envisioned. I had to go back over the bassinets with acrylic many times in order to create deep enough shadows and light enough highlights in the correct places. I also had to adjust the proportions/angles of some of the baskets in the back to maintain accurate perspective. There are still some more steps I would like to finish in this process, such as adding more detail to some of the bug eggs and painting over many of the currently graphite metal bars.
Originally, I was going to add more women sitting in the right corner of the room, but once I started painting them, I realized that they made the painting look too cluttered. So, I decided to cover them to leave the space empty by tearing up and reorienting prints, which allowed the eye to be drawn more to the left side, where the central bugs were.
Ideas
My first idea to convey the next step of creation – birth – was having bug eggs hatching in a hospital nursery. I decided to add additional contrast by having the nursery the bugs are in be from the 1920’s in order to convey the strangeness and unfamiliarity one feels when first coming into the world. I also chose for the nursery itself to have a lack of color to highlight how the unique wonder and vivacity of new life not yet burdened by harsh reality stands out in an often dull world. I picked specific prints to abstractly capture what early life and experiencing society is like: anatomy to represent gaining a new human form, a carousel to represent childhood, homes to represent going home to a family, and advertisements to represent the consumerist culture of today.
Materials
I incorporated many different mediums in this painting in order to push my boundaries and experiment with how different materials could add complexity and visual interest to my work. I chose to collage old prints and newspaper pieces to add to the vintage and surrealist atmosphere I was trying to create. I oriented the pieces into shapes based on value to match with the lighting of my reference image. I used diluted acrylic paint to create a sort of wash which I smeared with paper towel to create shadows that still reveal some of the original prints. I also utilized some pieces of sea sponge to add a weathered, imperfect effect.
