Monday, January 22, 2007

Molly and Her Dress of Souls



This painting is called Molly and Her Dress of Souls.

Acrylic on illustration board.

I went through a lot of sketches on this one. I forgot to bring them in to be scanned though so, I will have to post those at another time.

This one has been tough to capture as a scan, maybe a photo would be better. I did a lot of glazing in her dress in an attempt to give it an eerie depth.

In other news...

She said yes!

UPDATE!!!

Here is the progression of the sketches...

It started with a tiny thumbnail.



A bigger drawing, but it didn't feel right...



By this point, I was happy with the skulls idea so, I just focused on the girl...





Then I started wondering if I needed other elements to the composition, so I added a branch and falling leaves, Tadahiro style.



I quickly came to my senses though and decided that was distracting from what I initially intended.



By this point things weren't working so, I tried something fairly different from the rest. I rejected it, but looking at it with fresh eyes... I may turn this into a different painting. There's something that I like about it now.



Finally, I came to the image I wanted. As you can see, I still did some last minute tweaks by redrawing the face in the final painting.



That's it. There are probably 8 more sketches that I didn't even bother posting because they were only slight variations on what's already here.

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hey John! That's a really nice painting. I really like the colours. Nice stuff.

Anonymous said...

Oh. And congratulations on the threesome..... That is what she said yes too isn't it? (just kidding. Congratulations).

Amelia Lorenz said...

Pretty painting and congrats!

craig said...

kudos and congrats my brother!

monkeyfeather said...

HA HA!!! Good one Blair. That gave me a chuckle. Thanks.

Thanks Amelia. Good to see you around these parts.

Thanks Craig. How was LA?

Gerald de Dios said...

Is this the painting that's been on the table? It turned out great, Many cograts John! Here's more good news...shirts are done!

Paul Conrad said...

Holy cow John,
I LOVE THIS...and especially liked seeing the progression. Thanks for sharing it...
very inspiring.

Okay, now post something else. :)

Jon McNally said...

Oooo! Aaah! Really like that final sketch, John. Congrats on the upcoming wedlock!

monkeyfeather said...

Thanks Gerald! Good news about the shirts. This was one painting that was on the table, but not for very long. There's another one that I scrapped that was on the table forever. It changed SO MUCH from my original intention, that I think I somehow lost interest. It shall remain unfinished.

Thanks Yancy St.

Thanks Jonathan! Good too see you around these parts. Miss your blog.

Todd Harris said...

really like this post, great job on the painting and conept.

monkeyfeather said...

Thanks Todd.

MIKE THOMAS said...

Great painting john! You've gotta do the rejected one too, she has a neat look to her.

Skullossus said...

While I love the painting I love the sketches even more! They have more exciting linework and compositions and contrast. There are so many that are super lovely in that group!