 "Photo: Brendan Andrews")
 "Photo: Brandon Andrews")
 "Photo: Brendan Andrews")
 "Photo: Brendan Andrews")
 "Photo: Brendan Andrews")
 "Photo: Brendan Andrews")
A pallet messily decorated with lights and darks, a cup filled with fresh paint brushes, and a mind full to the brim with abstract thoughts…oh to be an artist!
Very few are blessed with the talent to turn a blank surface into something of beauty. But, could there be a Van Gough or possibly a Picasso strolling through these very hallways at Green River Community College? Yes there could, and he goes by the name of Brendan Andrews.
Let's rewind for a second; a group of students are starting to create Green River's yearly literary and art journal, called Espial. One Tuesday afternoon, they walk into a sea full of art. Scattered across about ten desks and hanging along each wall were bright paintings, brilliant drawings and exquisite photography.
Each student is handed a sheet that lists each piece of artwork, and was then instructed to vote for only their seven favorites. While there were several pieces that they each admired, only one jumped off the wall with its bright greens and yellows and intricate details of a woman's body. It was the number one choice; the most beautiful fish of them all. They just had to know more.
Brendan Andrews, a 20-year-old aspiring art teacher says he found an undiscovered passion with painting, "Things can happen with paint that you don't expect!"
He speaks very highly of Cathleen Casteel, the painting teacher at Green River,
"Before her classes, I didn't take painting very seriously; it wasn't my form of art. But while I was in her painting class I discovered I enjoy expressing myself through painting and paint media."
Andrews, who claims music to be his main source of inspiration, explains that the painting of the green woman, which is untitled, is about reaching higher.
The painting is beautiful and has a lovely life lesson to go along with it, Andrews says
"One of the things that has been important to me to keep in mind throughout the years is that I should always work hard and reach high."
The untitled piece is an oil painting; it took Andrews about six hours of work time, but three days for it to be completed. Andrews divulges that with oil paint you must let each layer dry. He describes the steps it took to create his most widely acclaimed piece,
"On the first day I painted the greens, yellow, and blues into the background. The second day I did the base layers of shadows and the outline of the woman; and on the last day I finished up with the highlights and details."
Andrews estimates the painting might have a bigger impact on people because it's a larger scale piece at about five feet tall by two and half feet wide.
Flipping through his portfolio of masterpieces, he stopped at a colorfully, crazy piece titled "Dextromethorphan." Andrews laughs, "Heavy mistakes, or as some call it: happy accidents are good things when it comes to painting." He instructs that when painting
"Dextromethophan," he accidentally dropped the canvas and it made splats that formed around the eyes and neck,
"I worked with it, and I was pleased with how it turned out."
This painting is one of his favorites and close to his heart,
"I was inspired by my friends experience of overdosing on Dextromethophan. He explained it so elaborately, I couldn‘t believe all the details he was spewing forth."
Hearing about his friend's psychedelic experience, Andrews was compelled to create a painting that could tell his story.
He forgot to bring a canvas to class that day, so he grabbed an old partly used one out of the bin at school. The canvas he used had a picture of an eyeball already on it,
"I painted a red layer, still letting the eye slightly show through."
Andrews' friend told him that when being on that drug he constantly felt a presence around him, like there was someone right behind his shoulder (thus the symbolism of the eye in the background).
The person in the painting is asexual; you can't really tell if they are a male or female.
Andrews did this to point out how disassociated his friend felt from the experience he was having, "He was the onlooker; he was a stranger in his own skin."
The tree growing out of his head is supposed to represent what his brain was enduring.
"His brain was being expanded left and right. He was having huge epiphanies; then they would suddenly be sweep away, like the canvas was being whipped clean," Andrews describes.
Look closely and you'll see that the tree is broken, not blooming. The reason why there are lines going through the person's ears is because, "His head was an open highway. Things were coming in, but going straight out."
is a member of the 
Be the first to comment on this article!