Vice: Masochism

Masochism, the first in the series. I first drew the sketch for this snake in a class last winter and, while flipping through my drawing journal, I came up with the masochist snake. I figured I should start the Vice Series off with less obvious vices. Most people initially think of the "big three" being smoking, drinking, and marijuana abuse.
Masochism is something that also plays a huge part in the rest of the snakes as you will see in the rest of the series. I used a scroll in the middle of the piece with the word addict to allude not only to the fact that this is a vice snake but also it lends itself to the tattoo styled art I incorporate into a lot of work. the color of yellow has no significance but the color scheme does. As I may have mentioned before this series is not just about conceptual art but it is also about pushing media. The color of the snakes is always done in a complimentary scheme. For example, red is the complimentary color for green, blue to orange, etc. In this case Orange is the actual color of the snake though it would read as a yellow since it is neither primary nor secondary but a tertiary color. tertiaries being the result of a secondary and primary mixing and more of one being added. in this case it is yellow-orange. Since its hue is more orange I chose a blueish color to compliment it.
Another technique I really tried exercising was using complimentary color for the value structures of the work. Most people feel that black is best for creating darkness and dark value in a composition but in most cases using black alone can make the piece too flat. In this case I really wanted the snake to pop off the page. Using the compliment of the base color to shade gives value rendering a more 3-dimensional effect.
Lastly, a lot of people have asked me why I use gold in the background and what it is. the gold is actually just run of the mill acrylic gold paint in a 99cent tube. I chose gold to allude to Giotto a figure in art history. His paintings of the ''Madonna and Child" used gold backgrounds to signify importance and the sanctity of the subjects. In the snakes case gold is used almost in the same way but it's more to represent vices being "worshiped" in a way. Some individuals take their hindrance to the next level and almost rely on their vice as one would faith in a religion or higher being.
So, that is thus far in the series. This snake was featured in the show and on the next few days I'll be adding the others and discussing them. Let me know what you think! :P

"And you know the thing about chaos, it's fair"
-Joker