I took me two weeks but I finally finished that big piece. Last week was kind of a wash, so I did most of the work on the weekend and once again messed my hand up painting scales for like 10 hours. Here are a couple photos of it. I'm still figuring out how to get something this big scanned:
This is the
Melusine, a (often) twin tailed serpent woman from Medieval European literature and folklore. She married a mortal while in human form with the stipulation that he never see her bathing every Saturday. Naturally, he peeked and saw her in her serpent form at which point she flew away (in some stories she can still be found roaming as serpent or beautiful woman with a golden key in her mouth). The idea of mortals marrying gods and supernatural creatures is present in a lot of myths and stories, and usually comes with some caveat like this, and pretty much always ends poorly. The twin tailed mermaid image is also used as an alchemical symbol, and in heraldic imagery:
Here she is fleeing the castle:
When I was planning this out I wanted to make some nod to the medieval habit of using arbitrary scale in artwork, presenting a building as tall as a person, focusing more on narrative than realistic presentation. I also combined my idea for the Melusine sketch with a sketch I did based on a Robert E. Howard poem, the Singer in the Mist.
"At birth a witch laid on me monstrous spells,
And I have trod strange highroads all my days,
Turning my feet to gray, unholy ways.
I grope for stems of broken asphodels;
HIgh on the rims of bare, fiend-haunted fells,
I follow cloven tracks that lie ablaze;
And ghosts have led me through the moonlight's haze
To talk with demons in the granite hells.
Seas crash upon dragon-guarded shores,
Bursting in crimson moons of burning spray,
And iron castles ope to me their doors,
And serpent-women lure with harp and lay.
The misty waves shake now to phantom oars—
Seek not for me; I sail to meet the day. "
If I haven't recommended his poetry before, I am now. 50% of it is about werewolves.
So, I've noticed that Pelikan Plaka is becoming less and less available and decided to start trying out a few new kinds of paint. My two biggest requirements are that it have a matte finish, and be opaque with a high level of pigment. Also water soluble.
I got a couple jars of this Turner Neo Color and so far I'm really into it. I will admit I was drawn in by the labels which don't seem to have changed since it was first intruduced in the 60's and by the fact that it comes in fairly large jars (and can also be purchased in what are basically small buckets). It's made for sign painting and design much like Plaka, but is a bit more fluid, cheaper, and doesn't have the same alarming chemical smell. It also doesn't build as quickly on the paper so the finished product is relatively free of all that pesky texture which bothers me so much.
I also tried out some of this Acryl Gouache. It's pretty cool but a bit more expensive and less fluid than the neo color, but with really bright opaque colors. Not bad! I'll still be bummed if Plaka disappears altogether though, because somehow their black is the BLACKEST and that's essential.
Anyway, I'm hoping to crank out two more pieces before doing all the framing and whatever else I think I can squeeze in before the show. Listening to
Fever Ray and getting weird. Bleh!
The frames are mostly painted, most of the backings are cut, just assembling the display boxes that Josh made for me (expertly as usual), getting all the hanging devices in order etc. If everything is ready to go by wed I might make two miniature last minute pieces. I'd really like to get to those but I'm trying to be reasonable. Until then, more coffee!
This thing is a Marool, an obscure little creature I found an excerpt about in one of my books.
Also this particular bone was covered in ridges since it seems to have formed in rings like a tree so it was pretty tricky to paint on.
The color is vibrating pretty bad in this photo but it's a bit less glaring in person. I can't say Im particularly excited to paint a bunch of buildings as straight lines are not my strong suit but I think it'll come out pretty cool.
I also wanted to mention the book where I found the blurb about the Marool. My buddy Ned got this for me for my birthday and it's great. Don't be fooled by the title, it's not so much about literal fairies as it is about the supernatural world in British/Scottish/Welsh/Irish folklore. It's FULL of stories about ghost dogs that haunt moors, long-armed swamp hags who drown lost travelers, ghost lights in the woods and banshees.
I have another book by Katherine Briggs and it's also really good. Her research is great and the excerpts have general descriptions along with synopsis of related folktales and the index in the back is arranged by theme, which is really cool.
This is the Melusine, a (often) twin tailed serpent woman from Medieval European literature and folklore. She married a mortal while in human form with the stipulation that he never see her bathing every Saturday. Naturally, he peeked and saw her in her serpent form at which point she flew away (in some stories she can still be found roaming as serpent or beautiful woman with a golden key in her mouth). The idea of mortals marrying gods and supernatural creatures is present in a lot of myths and stories, and usually comes with some caveat like this, and pretty much always ends poorly. The twin tailed mermaid image is also used as an alchemical symbol, and in heraldic imagery:
Here she is fleeing the castle:
When I was planning this out I wanted to make some nod to the medieval habit of using arbitrary scale in artwork, presenting a building as tall as a person, focusing more on narrative than realistic presentation. I also combined my idea for the Melusine sketch with a sketch I did based on a Robert E. Howard poem, the Singer in the Mist.
I got a couple jars of this Turner Neo Color and so far I'm really into it. I will admit I was drawn in by the labels which don't seem to have changed since it was first intruduced in the 60's and by the fact that it comes in fairly large jars (and can also be purchased in what are basically small buckets). It's made for sign painting and design much like Plaka, but is a bit more fluid, cheaper, and doesn't have the same alarming chemical smell. It also doesn't build as quickly on the paper so the finished product is relatively free of all that pesky texture which bothers me so much. 
I also tried out some of this Acryl Gouache. It's pretty cool but a bit more expensive and less fluid than the neo color, but with really bright opaque colors. Not bad! I'll still be bummed if Plaka disappears altogether though, because somehow their black is the BLACKEST and that's essential.
This flier is really heinous. Anyway my friend Alicia who's an extremely nauseatingly talented artist works at a fancy flower shop and curated a little show for what they're hoping will become a second Thursday regular event. It's in liberty walk, a creepy pre-fab art community in No. Libs. Most of the people in this show are my cool talented friends so if you're around check it out! Also PIZZA. She asked for pieces with animals or flowers in them so I gave her that Laurel Hill piece.
The color is pretty off there, the background is actually green. Strange.
And here's a shot of it with the background finished:
What's really exciting is how I've managed to scale up for this show. I guess I'm getting faster because These pieces have the same amount of detail but are all as large or larger than the biggest pieces from my last show. This one of Melusine is the biggest so far and I'm putting it in a mirror frame I got at a dirt mall:
Here it is with a regulation size cat, Mr. Vinegar Vincent Price, in it ^ I like the way it looks gold but I'll be painting it black for the show since all of my pieces will be in black frames and all of Mike's will be in gold. Because this one is a little bigger I'm assuming it'll take about a week and a half to finish since there's a lot of water detail, the detail in the castle bricks and all the scales on her tail. Woof. After that I'm aiming for another medium sized piece and that final whale bone.
