Would you rather know WHY or HOW?
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Well, here is both. Have fun!
Step I.
Have the curiosity to ask yourself what your own death portrait would look like.
Step two.
Sift through your memories and remember As many of the things that have molded you. Things that you have experienced that make you who you are.
Step 3.
Arrange some of those experiences and memories into a frame in your mind. I chose a rectangle.
Step d.
draw or write up a concept to create this Frame that up until now only lives in your head. This is the part where you get to push yourself to either create something easy or create something complex. My thought is that the more complex the more interesting it would be. This is most definitely not always the case. For me this was saying “okay I don't want to use Photoshop to do this nor do I ever want to touch ai for a project as important as this”. (Oh this is fun, I have just realized that this is important.) Looks like Step 4 just changed the trajectory.
Step E.
Now that I have figured out what this is going to look like in my mind and how I can pull it off in a physical form, I need to gather elements visioned in said piece that connect the experiences and memories to that physical form. In my case I have gathered two Lady Liberty coins ( Ma’s coin collection), a freshly road-killed timber rattlesnake, (so sad and my dad was super into snakes. We had LOTS of snakes in our home and hunted rattlesnakes and copperheads as a kid to extract the venom for research. Oh my dad was also a kickass scientist) a hefty bundle of my beard hair, recently removed by a neardeath drill incident, a golden mouse skeleton found in an electrical box and given to me as a gift by my love. (It remains the best gift ever, no pun intended), Dogwood flowers that used to grow in our front yard as well as the red flowers that grew in the neighbor's yard where I grew up.
Step 6.
Position a camera overhead for a straight down self portrait of me laying down with the silver dollars over my eyes to pay the boatman and arms crossed as if to be dead. Oh yeah we can finally grab that camera. 😁
Step 7.
Now make a print large enough to accommodate the length of the rattlesnake. Mount said print to rigid foamcore.
Step H.
Start designing the elements onto the print. In my case, I started ringing the rattlesnake around the hard vignette of the print so that the tail is being bitten by the rattlesnake at the bottom. Referencing the Ouroboros is an ancient Nordic symbol of a snake or dragon consuming its own tail, representing eternal cycles of life, death, and rebirth. I then started painting with dead flowers and ending up with the red on the bottom to mimic the red mouth of the rattlesnake. I then made a nest of my own beard hair over the beard in the self portrait and laid the golden skeleton of the mouse atop as a sacrifice.
Step 9.
Adjust lighting to your liking and make a click sound with your camera.
Step 10.
Print the new photograph and start a whole body of work around this. Be proud that you took the long fork in the road as few things quick and easy prove to be important or permanent. Short cuts can be a cancer in your artistic snow globe. Take the path less worn and keep shaking it up.
Step.11
Share it with the world. (Optional)
Possible side effects may include:
Believing one (1) like equals eternal validation.
Believing zero (0) comments equals public humiliation.
Refreshing your notifications like it’s a life-support machine.
Developing a complex relationship with the algorithm (it’s complicated).
Mild to severe impostor syndrome, especially after posting your best piece ever.
Accidentally inspiring a whole new wave of art and pretending you “totally meant to start that movement.”
Zooming in on your own work and discovering flaws that absolutely no one else can see.
Sudden fear that someone in another time zone is copying your art style as we speak.
Making a “quick post” that somehow requires 47 minutes of caption editing.
Sudden awareness that your ex, your old art teacher, and a stranger named Aunden have all viewed your post and know “things” about you now.
Receiving a comment that just says “🔥” and thinking about it for three full days.
Gaining unexpected confidence after a kind DM from someone who says your art helped them through a rough day.
Spiraling because someone with 12 followers recreated your piece “for practice.”
Briefly consider watermarking your signature, your shadow, and possibly the air around your photograph.
Inspiring a stranger to start creating again (this side effect may include happy tears).
Comparing your Chapter 2 to someone else’s Chapter 47 AND vice versa.
Developing an irrational attachment to a specific post that “deserved better.”
Random bursts (very random) of “Wait… I’m actually kind of good at this.”
Discovering a niche community of people who get your weird little art references.
Sudden urge to rebrand everything at 2 a.m.
Realizing that sharing your work is terrifying… and doing it anyway.
Yep I coulda used photoshop or ai (I refuse to uppercase the letters BTW!), but I chose not to. Sometimes the process of creating something by hand can activate lingering seeds that will in turn bloom beautiful fruits.
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