FLOWER POWER by db Waterman

A girl paints large flowers on a wall. She wants to brighten up the gray, gray city with colorful graffiti. The work is constructed with different layers. First I create a background with pieces of text from magazines. This is the basis. Then I paint the colorful flowers on top of each other with acrylic paint. Then I make an ink drawing of a girl who paints something on a wall. Finally I make the ground with the paint spatters, with acrylic paint. When all individual parts are ready, I put them over each other in photoshop. This work is part of the 'collages' series. I collect original photos and various papers from magazines for my artworks. I edit this with acrylic paint, charcoal, ink, ballpoint pen and pencil. I have always had a great preference for weathered walls with peeling paint and old weathered posters. I use this as inspiration for my art. The creative purpose of my work is 'to make something beautiful with old and used materials'. Many small details will be visible if the work is printed in a larger format!

This artwork is offered by db Waterman

I remembered that as a young girl I so much liked to cut images from magazines to paste them into school agendas, scrapbooks and even on my bedroom door. Add to this the fascination I always had for walls filled with old posters, flaking paint, scrappy billboards and weathered paint, it opened an unexpected door for completely new opportunities. Completely unintended I found a new way of working, I felt pleasurably and comfortably at home in. What started out as copying old walls with worn out posters has grown into many series of new visual storytelling. Not simply just eclecticism, but bringing together many seemingly incoherent story lines into one completely new story, my own personal story. Initially it lacked the one thing that is important to me, the transparency that normally only is possible with the use of watercolor. The unforgiving layering of transparent watercolors is a challenge I would not want to miss and after a lot of trial and error I finally succeeded in getting the collages as transparent as a watercolor. Every layer of paper, oil, acrylic, pencil, crayon, ballpoint, watercolor, ink, charcoal and whatever else I use, remains visible in the artwork. You can imagine it made me feel the queen of the ball !

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