Sunday, June 5, 2016

Trompe L'oeil "Trash Night" sold on Etsy

"Trash Night"
by Jane McElvany Coonce
I sold a painting that was near and dear to my heart.  Artists all have favorite paintings that are hard to part with, and "Trash night " is one of them for me.  But a woman on Etsy wrote me and told me she was really obsessed with it.  So I decided that if someone loved it that much, I would let it go.  

"Trash Night" is a painting done in the trompe l'oeil fashion.  Trompe L'oeil means "fool the eye."  Done in a realistic fashion, trompe l'oeil paintings are very labor intensive and take months to create.  That is why there are not many trompe l'oeil artists. 

This piece is painted to look like a bulletin board.  The wood frame is painted on the canvas.  The corkboard is painted to simulate a bulletin board.  Then various items were added: tickets to a Harry Potter movie (my family members are Harry Potter freaks), a photograph (of my 3 boys when they were younger), playing cards( Queen of diamonds is me- I was born in April my birthstone is the diamond and being the only female in the house, I am the Queen), matches and a firecracker (with 3 boys, there were plenty of firecrackers going off), and 2 notes.  One note is "Trash Night" which reminds the 3 boys to take out the trash. (This is my weekly "Nag" call that I make at the top of my lungs) , A key hangs from the wooden frame with the number 5 ( the number of people in my family)and a pencil dangles from a string held by a push pin.  All of these items are painted. The painting is a autobiographical painting of my family.


The painting is done in acrylics.  It is 11 inches by 14 inches and the sides of the canvas are painted to look like wood, so a frame is not necessary.  In fact, a frame would ruin the trompe l'oeil effect since the purpose of the genre is to fool the eye.

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