The Process of SEA MONSTER
The reason I like to make art is because I like progress. A great artist would use art as a medium to examine, compare, evaluate and analyse her progress. When drawing I prefer to test characters and sceneries based on how successfully 'nostalgic' they look. Well, because nostalgia calls for familiarity which — even if absurd — is attractive to the viewer.
The themes of which draws attention to me is anything that makes me feel like I'm getting an Eye Massage. Bring the focus to the most important parts while still giving the less important ones some depth.
- With the sea monster piece I wanted to test my freehand blending techniques. Throughout the painting an airbrush was used to subtract shadows, add light and vice versa. The reason why an airbrush was used is to give the illusion of depth as in the roundness of the eyeball and the deepness of the creature's eye socket.
To be honest.. when creating the SEA MONSTER, the intention was to create a picture of what the view would look like of the inside of an eyeball. The painting eventually evolved away from that idea and instead now we can see an emphasis on the eyeball itself and the creature who was initially depicted as a diver wearing some sort of metallic diver mask.
As an artist I aspire to achieve a greater understanding of how shadows and colours influence each other without using the guide of a colour wheel or particular pallette. The art I create is created using minimal to null amount of reference (not that there's anything wrong with using reference). I prefer using my eyes to observe and my hands to decode my visions.
- A person that I look up to when it comes to colour is Zdzisław Beksiński who I must have subconsciously emulated in this piece.
SEA MONSTER is a breakthrough for me personally. I believe that I exceeded my own expectations with this piece. SEA MONSTER confirmed that my use of shading and colour as well as perspective — Although not yet perfect — is showing signs of improvement.
