the vaguely artistic scratchings of elgarbo - Volcano Tiki progress

Love it!!!

Went back to work a few weeks ago, which severely impinged on my available painting time. However, this weekend I decided to just get stuck into it until it was all done... and about six hours later, here we are.

I present the completely finished final version of "The Beacon."

16 x 12 inches
Acrylic on canvas

[ Edited by: Elgarbo 2013-02-15 22:18 ]

It's great.

Dat kicks ars...

Jon

Simply amazing! Love it!

Ditto everyone else. Love it!

Ditto everyone else. Love it!

Hey thanks guys, glad you enjoyed it. Just another step along an artistic journey.

I'm planning on trying to rig up a few flash units and get it photographed a little more professionally, so it doesn't have light reflecting off the canvas. If that ends up happening I might do a cute little limited run of prints, on the off chance anyone is interested.

Anyway, now I've gotta figure out what to paint next. I think I'll go easy on the detail on the next one... started to go a bit crazy looking at the same canvas over the weeks.

Love the coral--so bright!

Yeah, the reflection off the canvas is so annoying when photographing work. I find plenty of natural light+no flash can help.

Seems like photographing art is more difficult than creating it. Sometimes outdoors in the shade during broad daylight is a good compromise, bright enough but not too harsh. Or outside on an overcast day.

I don't buy much wall art but I'd pay $25 for that on a tshirt :D

Well, I decided to start a new piece - a little smaller this time at 8x10 so I can knock it over more quickly. Another tiki, this time peering over the rim of a volcano.

Had a few false starts laying down colours - couldn't quite figure out how to get that lava glow work to my expectations, but I think I'm there now. You can see the remnants of the previous attempts on his nose and brow.

Haven't figured out what detail I'll add to this one.. worry about it when I get the tiki all sorted.

Had a bit of a chance to slap down some paint this week, which means this painting is progressing quicker than I'd expected.

Here's a detail shot. Will probably revisit the tiki later and add some more detailed carvings but for now, the next step is to figure out the background.

Lookin good

Jon

It's stating to get that creepy light from below look, very cool.

the vaguely artistic scratchings of elgarbo -

What an understatement! Wendy

Looking good so far Elgarbo!

Hey thanks lads and ladies, much appreciation! (It's very flattering to have people checking out your stuff, let alone enjoying it!!)

Anyway, here's a bit of insight into the mental process that goes into my painting.. it all basically boils down to making it up as you go along. I'd pretty much finished the tiki, glowing with the glow of lava. Realised that there's a lot of empty space in the background that needs filling up.

Suddenly, a brainwave - a flash of inspiration. This thing needs a bit of contrast, otherwise it'll all be just too overwhelmingly red. What better way to provide that contrast than to drop in an eerily massive moon reflecting off the pumping island surf below?

And so here we are... the surf's pretty much sorted, the moon has begun and you can see that pencil lines added for clouds and some swinging bridges across the lava below...

Almost finished now!

That is going to look amazing!