Finally...FRIDA!

9/1/2014

Frida...Oh girl.

Well, I did it. I spent a month with Frida.

What I did not do...was keep up with my blog. Or post the final pics to my Recent Works page here on my site on on the Facebook page...so...my bad. Lo siento.

But back to Frida...this was a fun series for me. I started off the month strong, researching Frida and including details about her life in the images and even some quotes.

Then...I became fixated with one image of hers...Self-Portrait: The Frame (1938) and after that it was a free-for-all of watercolor splashes, crazy birds and collage.

So...this is what I was working on since I actually posted final images of the pieces I have been working on...

...a whole bunch of Fridas...hanging out in my studio...

August 16-20th...I began working with color. I continued to use my black watercolor pencil for the faces, working in layers, and then added whimsical watercolor details. The feeling that I wanted to create was a playful Frida, despite her serious gaze.

Whimsical, watercolor Fridas August 16-20

After that...I wanted to transition into working with collage. I knew that I wanted to eventually work towards working with pieces from fashion magazines...but I didn't want the transition to be to abrupt from the paintings to the mixed media work...so I channeled my inner Eric Carle and created some loose painted papers using the same watercolors I had been working with...after that there were some days when I basically made a 'floating Frida head'...but no worries, Friday did eventually get a body...made by cutting up those watercolor papers!

...watercolor papers...floating Frida heads...and in-progress creations...

Mixed Media Fridas, August 21-25.

After that...it was time to incorporate the magazines into my collage work. I love to pair my drawings of heads/faces with magazine bodies, so I used that for completing this next set of Fridas...fashionable, fierce, fabulous Fridas.

Frida goes high fashion, August 26-30

..and then it was time. The final Frida.

For this piece I combined all the techniques I had used throughout the series, drawing, painting and collage. I also made sure to incorporate the same materials, watercolor/watercolor pencil, various collage papers both hand-painted, from magazines and scrapbook paper selections, some acrylic paint and small details with my Micron pens.

The final Frida piece in the August 2014 series.

I found a great shadow-box frame at Michael's to allow for some slight dimensional elements...and I incorporated an open composition.

I also added a quote that I have used in a previous piece...but it is the quote by Frida that I feel most connected to...

And I think many other folks feel the same.

“I used to think I was the strangest person in the world but then I thought there are so many people in the world, there must be someone just like me who feels bizarre and flawed in the same ways I do. I would imagine her, and imagine that she must be out there thinking of me too. Well, I hope that if you are out there and read this and know that, yes, it's true I'm here, and I'm just as strange as you.” -Frida Kahlo

...last but not least...when I was working on this series I was contacted via my FB page about submitting work to a Frida Kahlo-themed show at a Gallery/Frame Shop in Long Beach, California.

Long story short, my submission got in...she's framed...shipping her out this week! More to come!