Spray Paint Mixed Media Art

Not long ago, I posted about my first ever spray painting (see the post here) with a teaser of more to come, so now is the time to deliver on that promise and show you the goods!

For quite a while, I had been toying with this image in my mind of a tree superimposed over a background of planets. The envisioned that the tree was like an apple tree but with planets as its fruit instead of apples. After playing around for a while with a lot of cups and bowls and stencils, spray painting around and over them, “The Planet Tree” was born. It’s amusing to imagine alternative ways of how planets could have been born – what if they were grown on an apple tree and then plucked and placed in a galaxy? A galactic tree of life, perhaps, with an allusion back to the Tree of Knowledge in the Garden of Eden? (Comment and tell me how you interpret it! I’d love to hear what you think about it!)

“The Planet Tree” by Stephanie Oplinger

As a little something extra, I compiled a short time lapse video giving a glimpse at the hour-long painting process for this piece:

I also couldn’t get the idea out of my head of an apple floating in the center of a green galaxy. (Maybe I was just hungry for apples?) I tried some new techniques for this one, using saran wrap and rocks and stencils to help create the image. While I don’t think it turned out as space-y looking as I meant for it to like the painting above, I do love the illustrated feel of the apple and the galaxy.. or is an apple in a nebula? or an apple oozing poison? – however you should decide to interpret it. An illustration for Snow White? A symbolic piece about the apple from the Garden of Eden and the fall of man? (Comment and tell me how you interpret it! I want to hear your thoughts!)

“Eden’s Nebula” by Stephanie Oplinger

Another quick time lapse video as well for “Eden’s Nebula”:

After I was finished with the above two paintings, I looked down at the grass and spotted the stencil I used for “The Planet Tree.” Believe me, I jolted in surprise when I realized that it had become an artwork unto itself!

Of course, I needed to mount the stencil, so that it was more than just a floppy fly-away cutout. So, for the background, I re-created the effect of the grass by littering a black poster board with hundreds of toothpicks and spraying over them with shades of green. I rather liked it too as a piece to itself!