Thursday, November 16, 2006

Velvet Revolution

I finally got around to taking a treo photo (BTW, I have the Treo 700 now...Its a really long story) of the "Roy being attacked by white tiger" velvet painting I did for the Halloween Party:
Roy Being Attacked by White Tiger, 2006
Oil on Velvet 48"x60"
I really like the way it came out, and I am thinking of making more work in this vein. It is thematically identical to my earlier "versus" obsession (remember the poor astronaut being attacked by a lion?) but the velvet gives this one a permission to take itself too seriously... Unlike the astronaut, which, being watercolor, had a "trying too hard" feel...

Anyway, this realization has prompted me to do some prepatory sketches for more velvet paintings...with animals, doing un-animal-like things...
This bear is my favorite...He's a sloth bear, the kinda bear you want to buy a beer...The hardest working monkey in showbiz!who could leave behind a bear on a bike?

These are all white colored pencil on black paper (treo photos). I am hoping to get an idea of how they might look on velvet, but the black paper gives them a haunting...perhaps ponderous, or worse...Gothic...feel. I don't quite know what to make of them just yet. What do you think?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

MORE BLOOD!

The bear is my favorite too - maybe because he looks somewhat pained. There also seems to be a tension there that's missing from the other 2 sketches.

Be careful of the cute factor - it's a slippery slope. I have a children's book called Animal Orchestra and it's vaguely familiar. Roys throat was ripped out by the tiger - now thats drama.

I like that you're starting off with black ground - that can set off all sorts of weirdness.

carry on
s

Jared said...

Yeah, I know what you mean about avoiding cute...I just dont want them to look exploited. I heard someone say , about film, that "you can do whatever you want to human characters, but if you want people to leave the movie theater in droves, abuse a dog"...

The black ground really solves alot of my "figure/ground" problems, but the paper I am using is very smooth...which might create problems when I go to velvet.

As always, thanks for the advice, Tim.

JD