Monday, October 5, 2015

Western

While I am thinking of western themes (see previous post), I thought I would try something really out there.
There are thousands upon thousands of paintings with a cowboy on a horse. A great subject matter but I want to say something new. How do you go about creating a new story for a subject which has been painted so much? Night scene? - been done. Into the sunset? - overdone. Bright light, low light, silhouette, intimate, broad landscape - all been done.
There is nothing wrong with telling a story with a traditional bent. It just doesn't interest me right now.
Then it came to me, what if the story was about time, as in the passage of. That could be really different.
My idea is to have part of the painting in a sepia tone (like an old newspaper clipping) and blend into full color. I'm not sure whether the image will be fading into the background or the background color is coming to life. Maybe that is for the viewer to decide.

Here is the start.


I blended the edges to give a sense of warped time, a distorted camera lens looking back into the past.

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