How to paint with primary colors using the 'peace' sign theme

vgodwin

Hi, trying to paint my daughter's room. She's really into the Beatles and the whole Peace sign look. She wants to use red; blue; green; yellow so forth. Not sure what it will look like or which walls to paint with which color. Does anyone have any ideas or pictures like this? thanks

DangerMouse

sounds like fun! i'd use a good primer, then go nuts with bright colored spraypaints for air-brushing blended color backgrounds, then use your color paints to do thickly outlined stars with multi-colored flaming tails, etc. copy some of the characters from the movie if you feel comfortable or find/rent an overhead projector to draw them on the wall and then color them all in. i'm sure all us Beatles fans would LOVE to see this when you finish! Po)
thank you for a fun thread!

DM

http://www.art.com/products/p1342826...70afef9a7156ba
has the image seen below, if you want to see it even bigger, hit 'zoom'.

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Nestor_Kelebay

Vgodwin:

Well, if you're going to paint a peace sign, you should at least know a little bit about it. The standard peace sign is made by combining the semaphore signals for N and D (standing for Nuclear Disarmament) inside a circle which indicates the semaphore method of communication (which is based on three circles). On one of the early Beatles album covers, "Help", the Beatles are seen to be holding their arms out in different directions (as if spelling out a word in semaphore). The original intent was to have them spell out the word "Help" in semaphore, but doing that just didn't look good, artistically speaking. So, they kept the semaphore idea, but the Beatles actually spell out the letters "LPUS" on the album cover. ("Help Us" (?).)

http://www.anbg.gov.au/flags/semaphore.html

Thus, to do this right, BOTH of the short arms radiating down at a 45 degree angle from the center should be the same colour (indicating the letter "N") and the entire vertical line through the middle of the circle should be a second different colour (indicating the letter "D"), and the circle representing the semaphore method of communication should be a third colour. If you were to paint it wrong, you could end up inadvertantly painting the internationally recognized symbol for "Kissoff Goofball", which could prove embarrasing.

You should also recognise that the Beatles went through several distinct periods, starting with the clean cut image of the 60's, the darker period represented by the Rubber Soul album, the turbulence of the "We're more popular than Jesus" period, the Hari Krisna period, the "Paul is Dead, play the record backward for clues" period and their final LSD induced Walrus/Yellow Submarine/Shaved Fish/Cold Turkey crash before breaking up (which started off googoobajoob-great and ended up with Ono screaming like an idiot into a microphone as though she were quitting heroin cold turkey).

(now there goes an entity that should have never persued a career in the arts)

I wouldn't put too much Ringo or George in there. Basically they just went along for the ride.

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Scuba_Dave

Nestor_Kelebay

I dunno. I just think that not making the N and D distinctive on the peace sign serves only to hide it's true meaning.

And, I'm a believer in truth in advertising.

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Scuba_Dave

Well I guess that person will never come back to this site

Blondesense

On a practical note. If I was doing a child's room I would consider doing one wall only. Maybe a big mural. That way, when their tastes change, and they will, you will be more open to the idea of re-doing it if you only have one wall of intense color to cover or change.

DM had a great idea with the overhead projector. Another alternative is the grid method. Draw a grid (maybe 1 inch squares) over your design, and then very lightly pencil in a large grid (6, 8, or 12 inch squares) on the wall. It will take a little math to figure out the ratio. Copy it block by block. This makes getting the design on to the wall much more accurate than trying to do the whole thing freehand.

Lastly, you might google Peter Max for inspiration.

Good Luck.

DangerMouse

i was going to mention mr max, but his website has gone all political, so i decided against it.
i must have missed whoever is giving you guys the laugh, what happened?

DM

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Nestor_Kelebay

DangerMouse:

Before editing my last post, I responded to Scuba Dave by showing a 5th century depiction of a "Nero" cross used to crucify Cristians upside down in the colloseum.

I made the point that it didn't matter how you coloured a Nero cross, it still portrayed a terrible image. Similarily, it didn't matter how you coloured a peace sign, it still represented an anti-nuclear image, and was more a statement on military policy during the cold war than it was a symbol of youth culture during the 60's. That is, it really represented an anti-MAD (mutually assured destruction) policy than it did sex, drugs and rock'n roll.

And, I made the point that the cold war was ended by Reagan's military build-up, not any military stand down, and so the peace symbol really should be put in the same bag as the hammer and sycle as representing two failed policies.

Scuba Dave musta figured I was making a mountain out of a mole hill, and so he responded that the poster would never come back here.

After reflecting a bit, I agreed that a peace symbol originally meant nuclear disarmament, but has come to symbolize more than that. It now stands to represent the flower power movement of the 60's, the anti Viet Nam war movement, the sex drugs and rock 'n roll freedom of the 60's and the youth culture of the 60's in general.

So, I edited my post. I still think that it's most appropriate to colour the peace symbol to show it's semaphore origin accurately. However, I've convinced myself that it retains much of it's meaning regardless of how you colour it. It only loses it's meaning as an anti-nuke symbol when you obsure it's origins by colouring it differently than I described in a previous post.

And so I agree with Scuba Dave. Assigning too much meaning to a peace symbol is making a mountain out of a mole hill.



That's what 50,000,000 tons of dynamite exploding looks like, from over 100 miles away. It's the Russian Tsar bomb test, the biggest hydrogen bomb explosion in history. The top of the mushroom cloud reached 60 miles high, or to the edge of space. It really was a mad policy. How can you win a war with these things if you totally destroy the country, continent or planet you're fighting over in the process.

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DangerMouse

when stupid govts mess with power like that.... sheesh.... suprised it didn't knock us out of orbit around the sun.....or did it? heh

DM

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Scuba_Dave

Geez did I say all that?

Actually the nuclear explosions are now being blamed for global warming
We were knocked into an orbit that is getting closer to the sun
Each year we will get closer & closer until the sun pulls us in & fries us

Nestor_Kelebay

Well, if nuclear explosions pushed us out of our original orbit, maybe we need a bunch more nuclear explosions to push us back into our original orbit.

Good idea ?

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