Ahhh… when did I start on this painting? I don’t even remember. If I can recall correctly I started collaging on Thursday of last week. It’s taken me almost two weeks to finish this painting >_< I’m really behind schedule.. grr. I’m going to do two more paintings that are mixed collage and painting cut outs and then I will take a loooooooooooong break. I think I’m going to be sick of collaging after this. Too much of a good thing? Sorry I didn’t take pictures of this one’s process. I was so into glueing and cutting that I forgot to document D:
This painting is about Euna’s parents. Her father is the Emperor of a land in the Far East. Her mother Yun Hee, is the daughter of the Sea God. The Emperor Jae-Sun ascended his throne as a young man. He was very powerful and rich. He had many palaces throughout the land. But his favorite palace was the one on the coast of the sea.
One day he decided to take a boat out to fish. But instead of catching any fish, Jae-Sun catches a great big tortoise, with a hard shell and such a funny wrinkled old face and a tiny tail. Tortoises always live a thousand years in this land. So Jae-Sun thought to himself: “A fish would do for my dinner just as well as this tortoise,—in fact better. Why should I go and kill the poor thing, and prevent it from enjoying itself for another nine hundred and ninety-nine years? No, no! I won’t be so cruel.” And with these words, he threw the tortoise back into the sea.
Later that day Jae-Sun returns to his palace to take an afternoon nap in the hot summer. A few hours later he wakes up to a strange sound coming from outside of his room. It was a faint feminine voice singing. He heads out to the balcony overlooking the water. As Jae-Sun looked out into the water, there came up from beneath the waves the most beautiful girl he’d ever laid eyes on. She seemed to float on top of the waves, her mammoth dress an allusion to a conch shell. A giant golden fish tail was splashing in and out of the water beneath. Her long hair was a lovely sheen of black.
“I am Yun Hee, the daughter of the Sea God, and I live with my father in the Dragon Palace beyond the waves. I am the tortoise that you caught just now, and so kindly threw back into the water instead of killing it. My father the Sea God had sent me to see whether you were good or bad.”
Jae-Sun is enchanted with the beautiful Sea Princess and declares his love to her. “I want to you be my wife. I will have you or no other,” Jae-Sun says. Yun Hee is touched and takes him to meet her father in the Dragon Palace. Jae-Sun asks for permission to marry Yun Hee. The Sea God is impressed by Jae-Sun’s act of kindess earlier and grants him permission to take Yun Hee as his wife on one condition. Yun-Hee must return to the Dragon Palace for three months every year. They agree to the conditions and marry soon afterwards.
A year later a little girl was born to the happy couple and the kingdom rejoiced at the birth of their beautiful princess.
“You must remember that our Euna is half mermaid, my love,” Yun Hee tells him. “If sea water is splashed onto her legs, they will transform into a fish tail. Therefore you must be careful of her safety while she is on land.” Legend throughout the land is that if you eat the flesh of a mermaid it will give you immortality. To protect his daughter and wife from enemies who would use this knowledge for evil gains, the Emperor keeps their mermaid origin a secret from others.
I added in Janie’s little anteater creature. It’s sooooo adorable! :D
The next painting I am going to do will be a night time scene. Hopefully it will turn out well and people will recognize it as night time. I’m not very good at playing with different kinds of lighting effects. Like Rachel said, my paintings all seem to be lit by fluorescent all around lights haha.
I’m taking Steinhoff’s Medieval Illuminated Manuscripts class. Today at 1 I went to talk to her about what I will be doing for my final research project. She was asking me all these questions about the meaning of what I’m choosing to do and I was kind of caught by surprise by it. I was answering all stupid like, “Uhhh I really like the style and elements of the manuscripts. Like the gold leafing and border illustrations… so I want to incorporate that into my paintings…” Awkward silence as she stares at me. “Hmmm… but what is the significance of what you are choosing to incorporate into your painting?” Me: “Uhhhhh… <_<;;” (I dunno~cause it looks pretty?! cough) It was a longer talk than expected. I need to go to the Anderson library tomorrow and look up Arthurian romance books and such. She suggested I actually read the book and go from there. I want to make some illuminations about Arthurian and his knights. I think that would be cool… just really scatter brained right now. I don’t know how I am going to manage this project and also my projects in painting block…
