Shadow Beast

Shadow Beast

Shadow Beast - acrylic on cradled wood panel, 9 x 12 x .75  Ready to hang.  Available here and at Artfinder.


So while our art cannot, as we wish it could, save us from wars, privation, envy, greed, old age, or death, it can revitalize us amidst it all.   RAY BRADBURY

In times when the ugliness of mankind rears its head like a shadow beast from long ago, leaving us doom-scrolling and worried about the end of the world - there is art.

Oh, sure, looking at and appreciating art, but mainly making it.  Or trying to, anyway.  Putting my mind and hands to the task of creating has been balm.

There was a companion piece to this one - a large canvas which went through a million iterations, receiving on its surface the aches and pains and worries and fears of the week in layer upon layer of color.  Which is now covered in black gesso.  Mama said there'd be days likes these.  I am grateful for its willingness to accept all that angst and store it safely within its frame.

I think what's important is that we keep doing.  Create, sing, dance, play, move, clean, read - whatever you do, keep doing it.  Let the doing of it revitalize you amidst it all.    Wherever you are in this week of tumult, I wish you a pile of play dough and a companion or two to make weird creatures with.

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About the art:  beginning with a black gesso'd wood panel and a reference photo of a dinosaur skeleton, then a rough colored pencil sketch over top.  Adding washes of warm tones and then beginning to define the bones with increasingly lighter tones.  Allowing the dark to show through and create shadows and depth.  Resisting the urge to overly define - keeping the washes light and ghostly.