EXHIBITION TEXT:
Isabel Santiago
M16A2, October 2015
Acrylic on canvas
Using acrylic paints, Isabel Santiago was able to create an accurate copy of an M16A2. Sticking to her military theme, thus far, creating a weapon which is used in the army seemed suitable for this piece. Inspired by a silhouette painting of a gun, Shoot to Thrill, by an artist who goes by the name StencilKiller, Isabel Santiago created a similar piece herself, with her own take. She, however, takes a much different take on the theme and doesn't want to incorporate a violent outlook by painting a piece such as her M16A2.
RESEARCH: The Perfect Gun |
PLANNING:SIZE: After deciding to paint an M16A2, it made most sense to create a canvas that had a longer width and shorter height. A canvas sized 3' x 1' was just perfect for this particular piece.
COLOR: Since the M16A2 is used in the United States Army, an army green background color was best fit for this piece. DIRECTION: Before starting to sketch out the gun in its entirety, I had to be sure to get it in just the right position. Whether to have it face left or right was the toughest decision, however, after going back and fourth for some time, it looked more appealing to my eyes to have it face the right. |
DEVELOPING IDEAS:Before I actually started to trace the gun onto the canvas, I had the idea to make it look almost as if the gun was just fired. If this were the case, I'd position the gun all the way to the left side of the canvas in order to leave room for the fireball from the bullet on the right side. However, after thinking the idea through, I didn't want the gun to be fired because in my eyes, it gives off the image of violence or such related ideas. Then as the painting began to come along, the silhouette of the gun looked seemed like a much better idea.
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PROCESS:In order to make this gun as realistic as I possibly could, I cropped the gun into four parts using only Microsoft Word. I then switched the page from being portrait, to landscape in order to fit more of the length of the gun. After doing just that, I expanded the four pieces to fit the pages completely. This way once I printed these four pages, then put the pieces together, the gun would be large enough to extend across the entire three foot long canvas. After the pieces were printed, I cut out each piece then glued them individually to a large sheet of tag board. After doing that, I once again cut out these pieces and taped them together to form the whole gun. By doing this, it ultimately created a stencil with opposite negative space than a traditional stencil would have.
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CONNECTIONS:To say that we live in a world of peace would be false. Whether one wishes to see it, or to be blind to it, there is cruelty and war everywhere one turns. This does not just occur within the United States, but everywhere in the world as well. We live in a world where evil is something that we just accept. Guns and violence have essentially taken over and either killed off many or have changed the lives of many others forever. Furthermore, we live in a world where guns are basically essential. This painting connects a lot to the lives of nearly everybody. The fact that I painted a black gun on a dark green color pretty much camouflages the gun which ultimately represents how guns tend to go unnoticed.
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ARTIST INSPIRATION:The artwork to the left was one of the biggest inspirations for my painting. The name of this piece is called "Shoot to Thrill" created by StencilKiller and although the message I was trying to portray was the exact opposite of what this title suggest, the silhouette of the gun was exactly what I was going for. I opted out of using the bullets at the bottom of the painting because to me, that suggests that the gun had been fired. Furthermore, this gun is an AK47 and I decided to paint an M16.
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REFLECTION:
Overall, I am satisfied with this painting thus far. It is just about exactly what I envisioned the outcome to be. After taking the tedious steps I took to create it, I'm glad I took the amount of time to go about it the way that I did. The silhouette turned out awesome, but a bit of tweaking can still be done to absolutely perfect it. The gun is just about as accurate as I could've made it, given the limited resources that I had to use to create it.