artkarolina
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New Artwork: Time Demoncorn
🕑 Added 2022-12-30 02:34:42 +0000 UTC
OMG, I have been trying to post this for so long!! First I had to wait for it to dry to digitize it, then I had problems with the varnish layer. I needed to sand it down, and I needed 1 good daylight day to do that, which is a hard ask around the Winter Solstice up north. I guess I could have just posted some photos, but I rather show you the screen-ready & print-ready version of the painting. Here it is! As usual, high-res images for you & the print can be up to wall-size. The colors are true to the painting, so it's a pleasant surprise the pinks are so vibrant. It was worth buying new paint I mentioned in the comments of the color study post. I love how the light from the window makes the cyans & teals glow here:
This was quite the project. I really enjoyed it despite it being such a challenge from beginning to end. I feel a lot less rusty doing oil painting after a many-year hiatus, jumping back into monster art, and figuring out funky colors. It's like when I returned to digital painting and it was so arduous and rough.
WIPs Going Backwards
So, I did initially try the colors suggested in the poll. I glazed much of the figure and background with purples, and it just wasn't popping. It didn't have the right tone either. I'm not going for something resembling a metal album cover, I'm going for something reflect a feeling of a kind of manic despair.
Number 4 was the most popular.
This artwork does reflect some manic mood crash episodes I've had this year. If it feels chaotic, confusing, too tangy and sugary, yet unsettling and grotesque - whatever that sauce is, it's the right flavour. ✨🍗 That's what I'm going for in the color. I painted this in grayscale first exactly because I was so undecided on the colors. It's a way to get values down & some work done without being completely stuck.
This painting started as a pencil sketch that I am making into stickers! I'm happy I found a way to enjoy pencil art again that actually helps the painting process beyond just rough sketching.
Inspiration
Usually these kinds of striking figures stick in my mind until I draw them, and I had this ghostly, evil, metaphysical unicorn that's galloping through interdimensional time in an impossible way on my mind for weeks. The way I think of it is like kineticism paintings, such as Rhythm of Bird Flight by Erika Klein where the flight path and movement of a bird taking off is painted frame by overlapping frame. It's the same kind of movement with the repeating hooves. As for the personal inspiration, I have a re-occuring dream image of a galloping hell horse come to me every so often from the subconscious. I don't know what the personal symbolism of it is. It tends to come in times of distress and it's oddly comforting. I don't really follow astrology or zodiac, but I have always related to my Horse sign.
