Imagine That #55

This is a kind of relaxing work I like to do. Just start drawing with one brush, and mostly on one layer, in Photoshop. Completely unpremeditated. See what emerges. It’s a little like doing a puzzle.

I did this a couple weeks ago, but haven’t been sharing much because I had a big move across the country, and still am not settled in yet. I did this one a day or two before I left my prior location. It’s a fun style, and it tends to stress composition, form, line, and movement in a way that more realistic images don’t. There are intersecting figures, and a total of three eyes. Is it one tripartite figure, or three separate intertwined ones?

I like that it wells from the subconscious, and creates a crepuscular, dream-like environment. While the subject matter may bit a bit dark, in that the large figure on the left looks angry, the overall composition is peaceful. I enjoy the conjoined curvilinear shapes towards the bottom.

I worked on this by flipping the canvas left and right, and rotating it. It works in several different configurations. Here it is rotated 90 degrees.

Now the much darker figure on the left is more evident, with its bird-like tongue, beak, and eye. The mouth of the largest creature becomes a crescent moon shape.

This took a number of hours, and I could do these endlessly. Others I’ve done in the past were much more complicated, and I spent days or weeks on them:

and

and

In some ways this is very personal work, in that there’s no external subject, no references, and the computer isn’t doing any rendering. It’s just me, my imagination, and my drawing skill. And if you spend some time with one of the more sophisticated ones, such as the one above, you’ll start seeing things. There are a lot of textures, and they pulsate, undulate, and quiver. In a word, they are “haunted”.

It’s not good art for sharing on Instagram, or as an NFT. It rewards contemplative introspection. I’m planning a new series, but this isn’t it. If I can work completely from the imagination, and unpremeditated, I can incorporate some of that same process into a more deliberate image. There may be aspects of this approach, but I’m thinking something using a wider range of my skills. I’ve already started something for the new body of work, but may not share until I’ve done 2 or 3. Not sure yet.

Stay tuned

---

And if you like my art or criticism, please consider chipping in so I can keep working until I drop. Through Patreon, you can give $1 (or more) per month to help keep me going (y’know, so I don’t have to put art on the back-burner while I slog away at a full-time job). See how it works here.

Or go directly to my account.

---

Or you can make a one time donation to help me keep on making art and blogging (and restore my faith in humanity simultaneously).