Post #721352 by Tiki Shark Art on Mon, Jun 30, 2014 3:50 AM

Thanx Wendy!
ALOHA TIKI TRIBE!
Okay so working on my next painting.
The working title is "A Black Cat Crosses the Path of the Night Marchers".
Still unsure of the size other than it will be larger than 24" x 30"

So it's a painting about "The Night Marchers". I wanted to do a painting about them for years, but just wasn't skilled enough to tackle it.
I also didn't have an idea that would help express them visually. Then I had a dream about it - in the dream my friend was telling me about how she thinks her house is right on one of the paths of the "Night Marchers". And music by the Stray Cats(which I was listening to before I went to bed). the phrase "Don't Cross my Path!" stuck in my head, made it's way into my dream. Then, I thought of the endless paths/stair ways of M.C. ESCHER. It all clicked into place, or at least, it started to.
So... I want their path to be a M.C. ESCHER endless stair way.
I worked out what that would look like. Added in things to let you know it's in Hawaii (like Diamond head, & the Big Blue Pacific, & a Tiki Bar).

I tried out some figures on the endless path. Walking up.

Not up and down like M.C. ESCHER's amazing "Ascending and Descending" 1960 litho.

The question came up as to how many Marchers should I paint on this path?
I chose 8. In this drawing there are seven, but I think I'll add one more.
Why 8?
Because there are 8 major islands in the Hawaiian chain. (Then, of course, there are many, many, others that string out some 1,500 miles into the big blue Pacific. 137 "islands" total: This includes all minor islands, islets, and atolls.)
But 8 major ones.
7 of which have people living on them.
So I'll do one Marcher for each major island.
Because each island is so different, it will help me design 8 different looking Night Marchers.
Each marcher would have visual aspects that reflect the island they're representing.

Like the "Big Island of Hawaii" Night Marcher might look like one of the "Lava Menehunes" (in my painting "The Menehunes only come out at night".)
BECAUSE, it's the only island that has active volcanic activity.
The "Molokai Marcher" might look a lot like a skeleton because in ancient Hawaiian lore they thought that Island was inhabited only by evil spirits.

More laters!