Hey everybody! I just noticed I now have over 300 followers here on Steemit, which is more than I have on any other platform, and I have to say that I enjoy your genuine support and friendships more than what I have received on any other platform. You are all awesome, and I look forward to continuing this adventure with you. I am very excited to see where all of this goes.

Today I would like to share a painting very near and dear to my heart with you. This painting was inspired by photos that my friend Kristen took of my Vision Quest. Although I rushed this painting and didn't accomplish all that I wanted with it I am still generally pleased with it. I think this painting like a bookmark of the event rather than the things explored during the event.

Vision Quest

24" x 36" Oil Paint On Canvas

This took me about 160 hours to complete just the painting bit, probably another 15 hours of sketching and planning. I worked between 10 and 15 hours a day on this. I guess I didn't do a very good job of taking pictures of the process when I painted this. I really wish I had one with just the original drawing, but evidently I was more concerned about starting the painting than I was recording the process. Below are pretty much the only photos of the process I could find on my computer.

I did this a little different than I normally do. I'm always changing the process slightly because I honestly have no idea what I'm doing. It's all trial and error. After my drawing I went over the whole canvas with a very light wash of cadmium red light and turpentine just to get rid of the screaming white of the canvas. Then I had to let that dry really well, because at this point in time I painted everything with a very light coat of paint without any medium and painting into the turp. would have been useless.

Then I pretty much started at the top left corner and worked my way to the bottom right. I think it is usually a better idea to work the painting as a whole as much as possible especially in the early stages, but that isn't what I did here. I worked in little 5"x5" patches. I did this because at the time I was still resting my hand on the canvas a lot before I changed technique. Now the only time I rest my hand is for fine detail and I use dowel rod to keep from putting my hand in the paint.

 

Noticing Changes

When I just pulled out this progress picture something that caught my eye was the palette, and how much my approach to mixing paint has changed.

Nice and Neat

In this picture you can see that pretty much none of the colors are touching. How I used to handle my palette was to try and mix every color that I thought I would need for the whole painting on one palette, and then transfer those colors to a clean palette to work from.

I would spend at least an hour just mixing up paint before a brush ever hit a canvas. I did this because at the time I thought it was more efficient than getting in the zone and then having to stop and mix up a color that I needed. It might not seem like a setback to some artists, but at the time I was still really struggling to analyze and match colors so it was very defeating. I also did not like my colors mixing into each other on the palette if I could help it.

Now it's Like What the Fuck Ever

...And here is the palette from my most recent painting. As I improve at mixing the colors that I want I find it really doesn't matter if my colors touch or if I mix before hand. I look back now and think that it was a lot of wasted time and paint the way I was handling my palette before.

Where Did the Inspiration for This Painting Come From?

About 8 years ago or so I chose to do a presentation on Shamanism and how it shaped art for my Art History Class. I did a lot of research on shamanism, and in the end I thought that another plain Jane written presentation was going to bore me to death. So I decided to go on a Vision Quest. I knew I wanted to go be out in nature, try several trance induction techniques, and explore a world beyond my cultural programming. So that is exactly what I did.

I know what you are thinking, "Dafuck are you wearing?"

In the spirit of ridiculousness and improvisation I re-purposed several things from a friend's apartment, brought a drum, guitar, and a diamond plate pick guard that I made for my electric back in the day. I have caught some flack over people complaining about cultural appropriation, and I will probably catch more, but I couldn't really give less of a shit about what fools say. This adventure was definitely a cultural mashup,(Kristen painted an om on my head as well) there is no arguing that. I just think the notion of people being offended by cultural appropriation is just plain ignorant.

With my ridiculous outward appearance aside, I took this event very seriously. I was in no way making light of this important process. I was making light of physical existence itself. An important part of trance induction is is to cast off the idea of self and other concepts we acquire through the "programming" of culture. I know no better way to bypass "programming" than ridiculousness. Ridiculousness is a protest of the "programming". States of trance are very fragile or "shy" they can be interrupted very easily. You have to let go. You can't bring anything with you so to speak.

I think this process is more effective in solitude, but I needed to document the process for my report. Luckily, I was very comfortable around Kristen and not only did she not distract from the process, she was very helpful and took some great photos.

The reflective disks that I was wearing on my head were part of a lampshade, and I cannot even begin to describe the experience of being in a trance state walking through the trees with that on my head. I have no words. It has become part of what I refer to as The Ineffable Wink.

The whole experience was a huge success, and the presentation went well too. However I didn't get to finish my slideshow. The professor shut it down since, as it progressed I was in further and further states of undress. Oh well, I got an A.

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