Sunday Art #1

In keeping with my previous post about making art on Sundays–and in the face of much procrastination of working on syllabi and what not for the start of winter term tomorrow–I've finishing something that I thought would fit this category.

This will be an ongoing project in conjunction with the presidential election. For those not in the know, four years ago I was working on my master's thesis, a project that addressed mass media, photography, and journalism through the story of a fictional third party candidate.

Something struck me during the brief stints I spent viewing the Republican debate in New Hampshire last night, and I came up with this. Right now this new "project" is in its infancy, even though it appears that it's Mitt's nomination to lose.

The tones in this swatch were taken from official candidate photographs. Most color samples came from averaging an area of pixels in the forehead of each candidate. Numbers are the votes each candidate received, in tens of thousands.

At 300 dpi, the swatch is ready for printing on any thick card stock. With custom color matching available at places like Lowes and Home Depot, now you can paint your entire den with a good shade of Santorum.

More swatches will follow each official state primary, time permitting. Right now the best concept I have going is to use a group photo from an ABC News story from the New Hampshire debates last night. Maybe I'll have to set up the old tripod in front of the television for the next one.

Because of the project from 2008 (which was actually more like 2007-2009), I thought I had tired of elections and politics. But I think the tight race for the spot on the red side of November's card will actually make me pay some attention, even if it's only to mock the candidates, the media, or politics in general. At least it's got my creative juices flowing, as opposed to Santorum juices.