Category: Faces

Reach – Surreal Etching

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Reach Sundrip fmaReach is a surreal painting / etching created with Crayola Crayons and Crayola Markers on 6.5 x 4.5 inch paper. This is original art drawn with Crayola, smoothed with my fingers then detailed in ink. Your painting is hand crafted in that the images, including the woman with many arms, the sitting figure, the rain drops and the large heart were all finger etched.

Painting Details: A figure in white wraps its many arms around a large, red heart that suspends in the sky. A black figure holds onto the heart with one hand. His heart is blue. He drops blue and purple rain onto dark green grass where a man sits with his hands together under a large face created by the heart and the arms of the female figure in white. Continue reading “Reach – Surreal Etching”

Traveler

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Traveler by fma

What will you see in this ethnic, surreal painting? Ah, gold poppies, red poppies, a fisherman in traditional clothing reaching to the sun, an Asian woman in a white dress with a small orange patch whose arms reach down yet they branch out as bare trees. Beside her is a face within a face. Flowers grow, swirls spring out, color abounds then rests. Continue reading “Traveler”

Venture to Know

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Venture to Know by FMAA large sunflower mandala, a white butterfly and stone embellishments cradle the main subjects of the painting called Venture to Know. Her hair becomes the tree that reaches into a red and turquoise sky. Her face is divided into copper, wood, bark, Indiana yellow and flaming red. Deep set are the dark eyes of this figure, deep set lined in turquoise, Indian yellow and coal black. Her lips are white and cracked like the detailed crags and bare tree.

Are these scars on her face or life experiences? Are the divisions made to keep peace or to keep away? Continue reading “Venture to Know”

Iesha – She who lives

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Iesha School Girl

In a village or town somewhat far from here lives a mother and father who work hard and feed their family with food sufficient for each day. They go about sweeping, sewing, mending and patching, etching out life. They scurry here and there, rushing this one, readjusting that one, forgetting another. In this village or town far away from here there are the higher ups and those low on socially carved totem poles. Somewhere in the middle, growing up with sisters but no brothers is a little girl named Iesha.

I used my hands to work the oil pastel then added ink details. About 90% of this is a finger painting in oil pastels.  Continue reading “Iesha – She who lives”

Cut in Stone

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Cut in StoneA friend of mine, now gone, once said: “The most beautiful things come from the most foul manure.” I hope he’s right. I hope to one day grow past what is ugly into not just beauty but peace.

As stated in my bio, I have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder as well as Multiple Personality Disorder. There are times when my mind races and is filled with flashbacks from times unsafe. I want to run from my own head. I panic. I call a friend and then I take to a few more coping skills such as painting.  Continue reading “Cut in Stone”

Dance of Dissonance

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framed

By 4 am I was exhausted. My head was tired, full of noise that made no sense. At my threshold I got up from bed and walked 10 feet to my studio, pulled out a piece of paper and began to paint. I removed some of the surface paper for texture, scratched paint with a toothpick and smeared paint with all my fingers until finally the noise ceased. 

In the painting you’ll see a face outlined in black – eyes, nose, lips. While the face is hot with red and orange, the dreadlocks hang in blue and black. On the outskirts, into the white is yellow and the tiniest flicker of green.  Continue reading “Dance of Dissonance”

Inner Swim

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Inner Swim

The young girl sits with her legs crossed by a large koi. One finger touches the water, the other hand lays on her bronze and copper painted pants. Sand has been added to the pants as a symbol of stone. Beautiful, bright pink flowers grow in the garden. Her shirt is shredded fabric, linen pieces. The water wall behind her begins to take her in.

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Inner Swim

Art Title: Inner Swim
Art by: Faith Magdalene Austin
Medium: Acrylic, Gel, Sand
Size: 11 × 14 inches on heavy board

Pamela – Ugly Girl

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Pamela with Flowers - Ugly Girl CollectionI started this piece in 2010 but didn’t finish it until this 2014. I couldn’t figure out exactly where to go with it so I put it up. I pulled it out and returned it to a sleeve at least three times until one day it hit me, I know what to do.

Please let me first explain why she’s in the Ugly Girl Collection and why her name is Pamela.

This young girl, like my other Ugly Girls, is different. She’s not visually appealing. No one wants to be her. They look at her inquisitively, maybe even with fascination but they also pity her. That is the idea behind the collection, to paint those little girls thought to be ugly, the little girls who hear about their blotchy skin like Pamela has or have adults and children alike point out this and that imperfection within ear shot. Pamela used to hear the giggles, used to see the pointed fingers, but no more. She is strong within herself, but most of all she is kind. Continue reading “Pamela – Ugly Girl”

Thunderstorm on paper

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Thunderstorm d1In addition to the emotional process of creating this painting, there is a storm of art mediums. I do enjoy experimenting with different types of media.

Thunderstorm

In this 6 x 9 painting on paper, I’ve mixed acrylic with sawdust and sand. There is also ink and gel with a final matte acrylic seal. If you put all that together and mix it up on sketchbook paper, you get the aftermath of a thunderstorm.

In the painting you see a black face woman with lips and eyes like the sea. Her hair flows into the waves and becomes them. Her body floats until it too becomes part of the sea. You see the burning of the salt and the sun and her yearning for land. There is wave after wave after wave with the impending boom and resulting lightening. Or is has the lightening already shown itself in her eyes?

Continue reading “Thunderstorm on paper”

The Possession of Woe

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The Possession of Woe

For nearly three weeks I painted nothing. I sketched nothing. My paints, pens, inks, brushes and canvases sat without purpose as I struggled with an emotional issue that closed me off from everything. I knew I needed to paint but I couldn’t, I just couldn’t but it was suggested to me to start small, take baby steps. I tried that but then something happened, my emotional levee broke.

Images of what swirled in my head were put on canvas. Symbols indicating lack of sight, lack of understanding, anger, frustration and being half informed came to fruition in two painting sessions. It took two painting sessions to drain the emotional level and let it spill on canvas. Continue reading “The Possession of Woe”