• DREAMING •
With a big birthday and a big change in my life on the horizon I've been thinking a lot lately about dreams, aspirations, legacy and freedom. Then I had an idea for a painting that tries to express a some of the theme's I've been thinking about.
I really wanted to explore the idea of "fog lifting" and what it feels like when some restrictions on how to live are removed. I was also thinking about how it feels when something you've been dreaming about and aiming towards for so long finally starts to become posible.
After a few sketches, I chose this design because it felt most dreamlike. I wanted the character to still be mostly enveloped by the clouds to show how the dream hasn't fully been realised yet. A sense of freedom that can almost be reality but is still very much a dream.
As an experiment, I inked before I painted this time. I also thought the inks for my dippy pen were waterproof and it turns out they aren't. However, that mistake helped the painting by adding a softness to the lineart that helped it feel even more dreamlike. I tried to do light washes to build up the colour after trying to use them too thickly in my last painting. I also picked blues and yellows because I thought of The Starry Night by Van Gough and Yoshitaka Amano's art when I was painting.
I've added a couple of close-up photos alongside the scan because the scan doesn't do the silver and gold ink I used to lift the piece any justice.
Pen and Ink (Cobalt, Deep Red, Silver and Gold coloured inks), watercolour and white gouache in my small watercolour Moleskine sketchbook.
