Thursday Salute to Originals: Art You’ll Want to Kiss
In the most simplistic terms, kissing is the act of pressing lips against something or someone. Now the meaning of that kiss will change based on the situation and the culture, but no matter the connotation, it always involves your pout. But what if you could turn the everyday action of a kiss into a career? Into art? Let us introduce you to the best kisser around!
Natalie Irish creates what she calls “Lip Art,” where she applies lipstick and uses her lips as a paintbrush. She uses plenty of different types of lipsticks as her paint – name brands, cheap stuff, theater makeup, and lipstick she makes from scratch are all fair game – and starts smooching away to create a variety of large scale portraits and scenes.
Why kissing? One night the idea came to her as she blotted her lips on a tissue after applying a fresh coat of lipstick, ready to hit the town. She was captivated by her lip print because it reminded her of thumbprints and pointillism, which she had learned how to create in high school. Her kissing technique involves using various pressures and some serious patience and skill to place her lips in the correct spot over and over. The artwork of Jimi Hendrix, pictured below, was created with Urban Decay’s shade of ‘Confession.’
The artwork of Jimi Hendrix (pictured below) was created with Urban Decay’s shade of ‘Confession.’
Her portraits typically take two weeks and up to three tubes of lipstick to complete. During this time frame, she kisses her canvas thousands of times to achieve the details seen in the final product. Irish admits that she has lip balm readily available since her lips tend to become chapped throughout the process. She also says sometimes her eyes become strained from the constant change in focus from near to far, as she comes in close to the canvas to create the work and steps away often to view her progress.
Still, Irish is much more than an edgy kisser. She loves to paint creatively as a means to cope with an autoimmune disease she was diagnosed with at 18: Type 1 Diabetes. Irish explains that her disease takes the back burner when she is ‘in the zone’ painting.
We salute Natalie Irish this week for her unusual, whimsical approach to creating art. Mastering mind blowing artwork without the use of the hands is no easy feat, but she has exceeded this notion with just a kiss!
Sources: Natalie Irish, List Verse, Bored Panda, YouTube, Daily Mail, CNN