Fantasy is a woman - a painting for ART EXPLOSION WEEK 53: Theme FANTASY
Remember Hua Sanchuan
Acrylic on canvas
60 x 80 cm
Fantasy is a woman on a paperback book of the 90ties. Fantasy is an elven maid hidden in a field of summer flowers. Fantasy is the rotten mushroom dripping with slime. Fantasy is daydreaming yourself into a novel. Fantasy is the fight against horror. Fantasy is the smell of adventure in a deep forest. Fantasy is hope.
Backstory
Fantasy is no easy topic for me as it is saturated with thousands of images. I am an avid reader of fantasy novels… sometimes it seems I eat these books. And books come with cover images, which I find hard to blank out. My first ideas of this topic were so stereotypical. Ok the next few ideas were also stereotypical. And as I noticed all my ideas were – yes stereotypical, I decided to work with them. In the back of my memory was the famous ink and water color painting ‘mountain ghost’ from Hua Sanchaun and my solution was to blend my kitschy fantasy cover illustrations with his composition. To lend my interpretation a kind of poisonous quality I used mainly cold colors and used neon hues to set accents and highlights. The mountain ghost I transformed into a reproachful looking fairy who is now a ruler of dark and mysterious secret land. As Hua Sanchuan depicted wild animals which turned tame at the feet of the mountain ghost, I painted half eaten mushrooms which surround the female figure like guards. Forest and wildlife are no longer clearly visible in my interpretation but a billowing mass of abstract forms in the pond and misty background. And everything is illuminated by a sickly and bloated moon.
What I did
In started fast: no sketch, no preparatory drawing, but directly adding rough forms on the canvas. With a bigger pallet knife I formulated the pond and the sitting figure. The next step was to apply the basecoat for the background. For the first layer I used a mixture of green, brown and black hues which I blended with white. After all was dry, I applied the next layer of pastose hues of magenta, lilac and grey. Later I added highlights of neon yellow and pink.
Now fast was over as I fleshed out the details, first of the water and then of the sitting female figure. To get a vivid and rough texture, I work in several layers. For the first layers I work with a soft brush to add volume to the woman’s body. The next layer I applied with a wooden stick. I used thick and undiluted paint for this step, so the wood left a visible trace in the wet paint.
Now I proceeded with the mushrooms. I painted white outlines which later would appear as if the dark mushrooms are illuminated from the back and simultaneously to lend them a flat and artificial appearance. I then filled them with black paint and again used pastose paint to set some highlights in magenta, lilac and teal.
I hope you enjoyed reading about my painting adventure and if you have questions, feedback or simply want to know what fantasy novel I am currently reading, leave a comment. I am happy to hear from you <3
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Thank you for sharing my post and supporting me <3
How the hell were you able to pull this off without doing any sketches?!! That is awesome! haha. It didn't look messy too, it just felt right. Love the colors too!
Thank you so much for the compliments... and believe me, I very often am not able to pull it off :-DD You would laugh if you could see how many strange mistakes I make. But acrylic paint is very patient and forgiving, you can always paint over it :-D
That is true though, but still, it takes a lot of courage to do what you did! haha :D
Aha... so geht das also! :-)
Ich dachte eher so geht es nicht... :-D Ich habe gerade gemerkt, dass der Wettbewerb gestern abgelaufen ist, für den ich das Bild gemalt hatte grrrr.... Lesen hätte mir vermutlich geholfen, oder Datum wissen.
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STOPI love your painting and also I really like the way you explain the meaning .. It's a great participation to the contest I predict a lot of success
You can not imagine how complicated it is for me to make a drawing without a previous sketch and you have made it look so easy, that is AMAZING
A big hug @neumannsalva
Thank you so much!!! It is always so nice to get feedback (especially if it so nice as yours <3) But it isn't easy for me either... there many paintings which go wrong or which I do not like at the end. If I am honest I mostly like my paintings for exactly 5 minutes and then I hate them (I know, not a good attitude... I must work on this)
I do not make everything without sketches, but I noticed, that the paintings without are often more vivid and direct. So, I try to follow this way...
Thank you for stopping by <3
It happens to me that while I make a pencil sketch I love it a lot, and when I start to ink it stops liking and I think it is not being what I want, when I see the final result (in photographs) I realize how well it has been, and That's when I feel proud of what I did: D I think that distrusting our work is something that happens to all artists
Yes, you are right. But nevertheless it is strange how relationsships to and emotions over ones artworks behave :-D
This is very wonderful, @neumannsalva ! You definitely communicates the theme of Fantasy and what does it mean to you very well... It is full with life and strong energy and HOPE !!!
The colours are amazing and I love how you presented the process :)
Very lovely post !
uhhhh thank you so much for the praise <3 And I am happy the painting (and the text) could communicate the intended ides, as this not always works :-DDD