Things Are Never What They Seem - Subversive Paint-by-Numbers
I'd like to base my FMP on paint-by-number kits which I loved as a child. The motifs are always gloriously kitschy, from moonlit unicorns to Bob Ross style landscapes. Paint-by-number boards have two visual levels; the numbered lineart and the finished painting. My idea is to create sets of imagery that appear typical when viewed as lineart but reveal a subversive, provocative or even pornographic image once painted. This can be achieved by having adjacent outlined areas numbered with the same colour so that they merge into an entirely different shape once painted.
The desired effect is that someone might start off working on a cutesy drawing of kittens, but eventually end up with a pair of naked breasts (wearing a 'PussyCat' necklace). It could also be typographic, with a hidden expletive revealed above a smiling child. The process becomes a metaphor for many situations we face in modern life such as loss of innocence, subjectivity of memory and effort vs expectation.
I'm considering the possibility of making it digital and designing a website where people can download templates to print and paint. (Or a layered version that can be coloured in using Photoshop). The alternative would be to have designs printed onto real canvas and create actual kits...depending on the packaging they could be marketed to a suspecting or unsuspecting audience.
4 comments:
Someone did something very very similar last year- dot to dots of homeless people I believe...
I think the canvas idea has already been done (or at least in part), you can buy pre drawn designs on box canvas for people to paint in argos etc.
Thanks for the input...these are still early days so the final idea is subject to change. My goal is to emphasise the transition of one image to another using colour and form, which differs from dot-to-dot (which is monochromatic and doesn't have a 'starting' image).
The canvas idea was to spoof a product that already exists, and perhaps even test market potential. The scale is still to be decided.
Your colleagus comments are spot on...again another well trodden project- the best of which, a couple of years ago was a subversive tapestry. I know you might feel the urge to re-invent within this genre, (you might).. but would advise that you give yourself a limited time to do so before you give it up and move on,
GTS
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