Blue 'Da Ba Dee'

This is an acrylic painting on illustration board inspired by the Eiffel 65 song "Blue (Da Ba Dee)." After several tightly modeled paintings, demands were made that my next piece be more loose, painterly, and abstract. So in response, I painted this entirely with crumpled-up pieces of paper towel and a palette knife, and it was a fun process.

Besides obviously being painted entirely in shades of blue, the painting draws inspiration from the song's lyrics:

I have a blue house with a blue window.
Blue is the color of all that I wear.
Blue are the streets and all the trees are too.
I have a girlfriend and she is so blue.
Blue are the people here that walk around,
Blue like my corvette, it's standing outside.
Blue are the words I say and what I think.
Blue are the feelings that live inside me.

I took these and interpreted them, producing a painting that depicts the powerful grip of depression. Everything the "speaker" sees is distorted in his eyes by his depressive state, and nothing is good anymore, despite the fact that there are many good things in his life all around him. In fact, the only thing that's wrong with his whole environment is HIM, and the corrupted way he views things. Because of this disease, he has grown ugly and isolated from anything that can help him.

A morbid look at an otherwise peppy, upbeat dance-techno hit, perhaps, but I love the irony of it all.

The "girlfriend" is actually based off of my friend Corinne McKay from CCAD, in a pose she'd done for a black and white photo.