" heart 6: glittering, yet worn away "

No.9

Adding a fresh coat of white to the margins of daily life.
This is Naokimi.

What are you wearing down in order to shine?
Are you prepared for it?
Or are you unaware of it?

What is revealed by being worn away?
True feelings. Pure thoughts.

All of it, taken together, is me.

It is hard to tell in the photo, but the entire piece is coated in transparent acrylic gouache with glitter, so it sparkles when hit by light.

I make it a rule to keep painting on a canvas I have started until I feel it is "complete."
I believe that if I keep throwing them away halfway through because I cannot paint well, I will never learn how to paint.

This painting was lost for a long time.

When I started, the idea was "I want to create a gradation."
Specifically, one that combines different color families.

I chose two colors: blue and pink.
I wanted to create a bright, glittering gradation.

After creating the gradation across the entire canvas, I thought, maybe I could paint a heart floating within it.

This is where I got lost.

The gradation just wouldn't feel right.
No matter how many times I painted it, it didn't look good.

Thinking maybe it didn't have to be a gradation, I tried painting it blue or pink, but it still felt wrong.

Thinking I might be able to reset it, I tried painting over the entire heart with purple, which seemed like it would blend with both blue and pink.

However, because I had already applied so much paint, the heart area had become thick, and I felt that painting it purple or white wouldn't reset it at all. If anything, it felt like I was moving further away from a sense of completion.

The thought, "Well, why not try scraping it off instead?" was what led to the final form of this painting.

I think it was because I had just made a painting using sandpaper to scrape out patterns, and I had just realized how interesting scraping could be.a painting using sandpaper to scrape out patterns

When I scraped the heart area, the vibrant blue and pink peeked out from under the purple. The three colors combined like a marble pattern, the shape of the heart became distorted, and the gradation around the heart was also scraped away.

Suddenly, I felt like I could see the finished piece.

I started drawing this picture with the idea of making it look glittering.

The purple visible on the surface.
The vivid blue and pink inside that peek through as it is worn away.
The distorted heart shape and the rough gradient around it.

This feeling of not just being glittering, but also showing the scars beneath.

I felt that this is what makes the glitter stand out, and suddenly the painting felt right.

It's not exactly that I wanted to be glittering, but I had an ideal image of how I wanted to be. I think everyone has that, to a greater or lesser extent.

As a result of working toward that, I ended up breaking my heart, but that doesn't mean I think you shouldn't try to be glittering.

I don't want to deny the act of striving to embody one's ideals.

I just hope that everyone's heart remains healthy.