The Art of Michael Whelan

The Art of Michael Whelan

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The Art of Michael Whelan
The Art of Michael Whelan
STARCASTER
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Daily Art

STARCASTER

2018 Leftovers and Palette Gremlins #9

Michael Whelan
Dec 14, 2024
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The Art of Michael Whelan
The Art of Michael Whelan
STARCASTER
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Against a pink background, a dark skinned enchantress is captured in profile mid-ritual. Her eyes focus on overlapping bubbles of light evoked by an elegant gesture. Fingers thrown wide, a soft glow illuminates the back of her hand in silhouette. In her other hand, she daintily pinches a tiny ornate vial by its long neck. Vapors trailing off the tincture waft low in a zig-zag motion. Light warms her face, brightening silver highlights of her headdress saturated in lilac tones. The patterns of spiral along her cheeks seem tangible, so do bell-shaped tassels dangling to her shoulders, but her figure fade to astronomical abstraction filled with 5-pointed stars and many spiral galaxies. Her hair whips wily in silhouette as the background shifts to blue behind her.
STARCASTER (2018), Acrylic on Palette Paper - 9" x 12"

This one grew out of a splatter of raw umber on a sheet of gray palette paper. I fiddled with it almost as an afterthought and liked where it was going enough that I took a photo before adding anything. Over the weekend I spent time bringing it into sharper focus.

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Additional images from STARCASTER

LEFT: An early photo of the figure in progress with the face defined in silhouette. Taken at an angle, the artist's illustration table occupies most of the photo. The space is a bit of a mess. This is how the sausage is made! RIGHT: Work in progress photo of STARCASTER. The figure is worked out in detail in raw umber on black. Her eyes focus on overlapping bubbles of light evoked by an elegant gesture. Fingers thrown wide, a soft glow illuminates the back of her hand in silhouette. In her other hand, she daintily pinches a tiny ornate vial by its long neck. Vapors trailing off the tincture waft low in a zig-zag motion. Her hair is held back by an ornamented headdress of swirls and stars that give way to ringed planets and spiral galaxies.LEFT: An early photo of the figure in progress with the face defined in silhouette. Taken at an angle, the artist's illustration table occupies most of the photo. The space is a bit of a mess. This is how the sausage is made! RIGHT: Work in progress photo of STARCASTER. The figure is worked out in detail in raw umber on black. Her eyes focus on overlapping bubbles of light evoked by an elegant gesture. Fingers thrown wide, a soft glow illuminates the back of her hand in silhouette. In her other hand, she daintily pinches a tiny ornate vial by its long neck. Vapors trailing off the tincture waft low in a zig-zag motion. Her hair is held back by an ornamented headdress of swirls and stars that give way to ringed planets and spiral galaxies.
STARCASTER, work in progress

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The Art of Michael Whelan
The Art of Michael Whelan
STARCASTER
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Discussion about this post

gary
Dec 15

That's beautiful and has such a sense of the passage of time! From a paint splatter!

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