Perhaps you can explain this one...
Much of being an artist-slash-illustrator involves stuff that has very little to do with painting, but they are means to allow the painting part to happen. But, when the ratio of creating to chores becomes a little out of proportion, I can get the urge to make something in whatever time I can scrounge. I did this one a few weeks back, I had no plan but just attacked the surface with some abstract shapes and color. At some point I started seeing some forms in there and began fleshing them out and trying to apply some sense of logic to make them more believable. I used acrylic because I didn't have a big window of time to work around some of casein's slower-paced qualities, and that actually made me more appreciative of the medium I had used exclusively for years.
Ports 8.5x11" acrylic on illustration board
I can't tell you what this one is about, in fact when I was painting it I wasn't even certain which side of the painting should be up or down because they all worked. I'd be curious to hear what people think is depicted in the painting.
~Paul
~Paul
I see sea creatures blasting off from the bottom of the ocean
Reply to this
I dig it, boss. Glad to see you got to let your hair down,
In it's current orientation, I am seeing these as stalactites in a high fantasy-Underdark context. Maybe they were hollowed out and opened at the tip to drain some cavern above? Very DnD-ey I guess.
Reply to this
Thanks, Duffy! Cool idea, and I can see it now- and I'm guessing you're thinking of the Drow (or "dark elves" that live in subterranean cities). I suppose they'd need to expand their territories, and may need to clear out underground lakes.
Reply to this
Paul - I had a sense of large scale looking at the artwork. The depiction is organic, but in an old, slow growing way, like the way barnacles grow. Almost like a living landscape, or a extreme closeup of the surface of a digestive organ. Dreamscape?
Reply to this
I hadn't imagined a microscopic view- very interesting! Barnacles come close to what had crossed my mind at some point during the painting process, you can even see a broken one in the scene- a deceased resident I suppose.
thanks Brian!
Reply to this
They do look organic. Viewed upside down, they might resemble volcanic eruptions, but this way, I see conical growth which have opened and are spewing (intentional projection, not just letting things fall) clouds of pollen or spores or similar material.
Reply to this
Thanks, Chris, for your impression of the painting, I appreciate it! So I guess they could be some sort of massive colony of fungi or plants?
Reply to this