When you look up into the deep dark, glittering night sky, what do you feel?
I feel an all encompassing feeling of awe and wonder. Countless stars bedazzling me, the constellations inspiring my imagination and stimulating my mind. I could lay and watch the night sky for hours, oddly comforted by the unease it stirs within me. The vast and unknown realms of outer space are frightening, intriguing, and wondrous all at the same time.
Sometimes, when I look at the night sky long enough, I think I see stars move, shooting from one direction to the other, stopping, and then going in circles. Are my eyes playing tricks on me, or is there something out there?
Aliens, angels, fairies, multi-dimensional beings? Could angels not appear as sparks in the midnight sky, fairies as glowing lights, or alien species zipping by in their spaceships?
Us earthly beings, comforted by the trees and green things, to encounter such a being would be... exhilarating? confusing? scary? enlightening? Or maybe it would be oh, so very peaceful, bringing a sweet sense of knowing upon us.
When I look up at the night sky, I feel a combination of all of those things. I feel exhilarated and yet peaceful, like I found my place but am to embark on an adventure. The night sky stirs many feelings within me, maybe like an otherworldly angel would.
These feelings and visions are the inspiration for this painting, an encounter with an angel deep in the woods at night, seeing her emerge from the constellations to become real, huge and gloriously bright. This was a lovely vision quest, I enchanted myself, it drove my imagination wild!
The Process:
It all started pretty rough, and slowly morphed into something beautiful! The human being went from a man to woman to man again in my process.
I felt that a man would fit better. I don't know why really haha. I need to practice drawing and painting guys, and this way there is the whole opposites thing at play here, divine feminine and sacred masculine. I thought it might be fitting!
Also very interesting is that this dude turned out to look sorta like my dad! I showed @offgridandy my painting and he was like "hmmm yes I remember that time" haha. Maybe I painted a scene from the past, or a scene of the future?
Now to add stars and bodies! I had to scour the internet for pictures of people in the poses I wanted, but that didn't really work I had to make it up and go with the flow as I went along! People can be a hassle to paint or draw. More so with painting however, because you don't get an erraser and its hard to replicate the skin colours perfectly, especially if you run out! It took me 3 days to get these people looking like people and not monkeys or super alien like lol.
At this stage I messed up the angels hair, so it became a hair dress for a night haha. After some creative gazing and suggestions by @offgridninja I figured out what to do! Sometimes you look at your own work so long you can't tell if it looks good or not, so its always helpful to have an aesthetically skilled ninja around. If you don't have a ninja, well, I suppose you will have to find someone else.
I also really love painting stars! The night sky is so beautiful, and I found a good technique for making some stars brighter then others too. Of course its fun to splat paint everywhere (and all over your trees and table lol) but to make those real shiny stars, you gotta take the tiniest bit of blue or red paint and make a little dot. Then take another paintbrush that is a little wet and smudge the spot into a circle. Then you plop a little white dot in the middle and voila! Stars and constellations!
Fix a little of this, fix a little of that. Eventually, it comes together! I made the angel all blue and bright like, with silver. It took me forever to get her eyes just right. And her hair. And the tree bark too that took a while. And like everything else.
I think the foreground really pulled everything together! The angel behind the trees makes her look really giant and like she really is coming out of the sky. The grass was really fun to do too! I love my long fancy brush that makes decorative strokes.
I also love titanium white. I don't know if you can tell but there are two whites on the angel wings, plain old dollar store white and high quality titanium white, super white white, so white its blinding!
Finally, I finished! It took me 3 days haha. I am sort of glad that our generator goes out occasionally because it makes me get off the internet and paint instead! One of my most favorite paintings so far.
Honestly, I will probably work on a couple more details another time, make the hands better after I practice painting hands. Otherwise, I am satisfied for now! It was a lovely process and the end result is totally awesome! As always, it looks better in person, though the pictures do it some justice.
The Takeaway
I explored a new expression of myself and my idea of what an angel might be, and honed my artistic skills at the same time. My imagination was captured by the topic and I was challenged to paint something beautiful to express the theme.
I think in my eyes, I succeeded! A beautiful and meaningful vision I have created on my canvas. I practiced focus, attention to detail, and got to experience the oddly meditative task of washing my paintbrushes out haha. So many things come from painting a simple picture!
I am so glad that there are contests like the Steemit Vision Quest that can inspire me and help me create! Check it out! It helps sometimes to have a little bit of a reason or prompt to get the creative juices stirring. Thank you @cabelindsay for this awesome contest and thank you to everyone who participated! I am excited for the next topic as well.
Thank you for visiting my blog and spending the time to peak into my world, I appreciate the support no matter how big or small. If you enjoyed this post, do not fret, there is more! Check out these links for more posts from @skycae!
Lets Get Crafty! Connecting Services with Needs through Blockchain Technology!
Vegetable Family Study Guide #4
https://discord.gg/QU8ASsh
www.steemit.com/@livesustainably
https://discord.gg/434kYZ