Holly Pettis' Collage & Painting Project

Marilyn Monroe

The inspiration for my art piece came from the works of Andy Warhol. He is a famous "pop art" artist. I love how his work is bold and always displays some sort of message. He uses bright colors and his work is a lot like block printing because he uses a lot of shapes as well. I created depth in my piece by using collaged newspaper which i painted over, but the words could still show through. I then wrote words which describe the many attributes of Marilyn Monroe. I placed the words specifically so that they draw the viewer to her face. I used specific colors in my piece which accent each other and are all bright and bold. The hot pink represents Marilyn Monroe's girly, coy, and sexy side, while the indigo around her mouth represents how she was a tomboy. Her hair is "wispy" because she was always lost and curious. Her eyes and around her face is black because she was a very mysterious woman. My piece is very balanced because on either side i have the same colors and used the same technique when placing my words around her face in order to draw the viewer's eyes into her face. I used the same size newspaper throughout the entire piece and made sure Marilyn's face was right in the middle of the canvas. I balanced the use of the bright colors by blending them softly together. Since i painted the background hot pink i also painted her eyeshadow hot pink to balance out the colors so that it was not completely random. To add texture to my piece i used newspaper and painted over it. Her face is completely flat, so the newspaper around her face really frames her face and makes it the center and makes it pop out more. Before i even started painting i had planned out specifically which colors i was going to use as well as where i was going to place everything and exactly what the message was i was trying to convey. i made several sketches and finally found what suits Marilyn best.