Medusa and child
This image came to me around a week ago, a woman with multicolored projections emanating upward from her eyes and running down her body. I had been thinking a great deal about silk painting and psychedelia.
The original sketch. I used Derwent Inktense blocks by wetting my brush and picking up the pigment, then laying it down like watercolors. The black outlines are with a Pilot Precise V7 pen. I love this drawing; her three-quarter turn, her small chin and big eyes looking up, her serene smile. I was almost finished when I really wanted to have her holding a cat, but since this is the bottom of my page I didn't feel there was enough room.
Second painting. As with the first, I free-handed the whole thing with paint instead of laying down a pencil sketch. I gave her a bigger chin this time and made her body more substantial, also added red eyes to her snake hair. I think she appears stronger facing the viewer directly which also gives her Ocular Emanations/Power Tears a nice symmetry. I liked giving her a soft waist with a little bit of a fold.
Third drawing with "the full monty": pencil sketch, pen lines, erase pencil lines, paint, marker, ballpoint pen and lastly colored pencil. This round I drew her leaner and more muscular, and hers is my favorite face.
Now she looks like Amanda Peet in the last Halloween costume she would ever wear. This incarnation is totally digital and as such I tried to make the image as crisp and clean as possible, an effect I am unable to achieve with paint. Created exclusively in Gimp using my Wacom drawing tablet-- though the Wacom is not a necessity, without it my hand would have cramped into a useless claw long ago. I decided against adding her Ocular Emanations this time when they covered her beautiful hair.
Of my three pieces the first and second are most likely to translate well into silk paintings which often have a loose and vivid watercolor look. The third has my favorite face and I like her cat, but I prefer it blue like it is in my second and fourth piece. Often when I am struck with an artistic image I will explore it in a single medium until worked out of my system. This time I chose to experiment with working through a theme in various mediums and exploring new looks for the same art. I am not finished with Medusa quite yet, just as I am sure she's not finished with me.
Of my three pieces the first and second are most likely to translate well into silk paintings which often have a loose and vivid watercolor look. The third has my favorite face and I like her cat, but I prefer it blue like it is in my second and fourth piece. Often when I am struck with an artistic image I will explore it in a single medium until worked out of my system. This time I chose to experiment with working through a theme in various mediums and exploring new looks for the same art. I am not finished with Medusa quite yet, just as I am sure she's not finished with me.