The Making of a Giant Skeleton Painting

For many days, during a stormy autumn week…

…I locked myself in my studio.

This is the progress of a large new acrylic-on-canvas painting titled ‘Thy Winter is Forever.’

Please enjoy…


It began with the background. Two coats of heavy acrylic paint. I used a wet brush to blend the colors together. Blue, green, purple, white, cream, grey, black…and more. This took about two days, and another half-day to dry.

 


Next, I began sketching, sketching, sketching. I used a black (soft-nose) colored pencil. Easy to erase. Easy to paint over. For the hands, I photographed my own fingers in various poses. In truth, this was one of my favorite parts of the process…

 


It looks like matte black paint, right? Only, it’s not. The subtle greys I added to the skeleton undertones show up better when viewed in-person. For my painter friends out there, I recommend rarely using straight black. Add a second & third color, mix well, and achieve a nice texture which black alone cannot match.


I sketched in the birds, and then painted them using the same black/grey mix as the skeleton. The wings were hard, but fun! For this entire painting, I worked right to left. Which…normally…as a predominantly right-handed artist, I’d recommend the opposite. Whatever…


 

More sketching, sketching, sketching. I paused to add the foremost tree to make sure my birds ended up in the right spot. And who doesn’t love a nice dead tree? Am I right?


Next, I went in with a few soft details on the skeleton and several background elements, including bones and distant tree limbs. Those poor birds. They’re still waiting on me…

 


Ah ha! Finally, the birds got their due. And look! Snowflakes! The birds swooping into snow was the original idea for this painting, a scene imagined by my lovely bride. Thanks, Heather!


The snow begins to settle on the branches. And the details on the skeleton begin to emerge. This is no evil creature with which we’re dealing. He’s giving winter its essence, its lifeforce. An important task, yes?


A close-up of the left side. Still a ways to go…

 


And a close-up of the right side. Such a gentle giant, Skelly is…


And finally, we arrive at the end. Tiny touches of white for the snow and the crisp winter light falling on Skelly’s bones. And most importantly, the painstaking details of the snow settled on each branch, big & small.

I hope you like it!

(To see even more pics, click the final image below.)

 


 

Thursday Art Assault – Five Stark Original Paintings

‘The Towers’ – J Edward Neill – 2020

‘Forsaken’ – J Edward Neill – 2020

‘Spires of Night’ – J Edward Neill – 2020

‘Remembrance’ – J Edward Neill – 2020

‘Recorruption’ – J Edward Neill – 2020


Find more paintings like this at 

Dark New Cover Art – Let the Bodies

In the old world city of Ellerae, one person goes missing every day.

Poor little Mia doesn’t stand a chance.

Or does she?

Let the Bodies

One dead. Every night. Forever…

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Let the Bodies also appears in the short novel – The Hecatomb.

The cover art (The Shroud) is available as an art print right here.

J Edward Neill

Painting with Darkness, Part VIII

In recent weeks, I’ve been working with my paintbrush more than I’ve been writing.

Turns out slashing with paint gets the darkness out of my system much faster than hammering on a keyboard.

And so I thought I’d share:

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Let-There-Be-Fire-300x298

‘Fire Lens’ – 36″ x 36″

Fire Lens is 3 lbs of canvas. It’s huge! The photo here is somewhat muted, but the live version is lustrous and dark, a shining white eye wreathed in deep crimson and black. It’s a room dominator, to be sure.

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Dripping

‘Dripping’ – 36″ x 22″

Dripping was a tortuous painting. It started as a watercolor experiment and became much more. I saturated my paints with as much water as they could hold (while still maintaining a bit of grey/black) and went to work. The acrylics drained down the canvas. The white lines you see are drip marks, which is exactly what I wanted. The muddled blacks and gruesome greys are where I let the watered paint form into little puddles. This is one sad, cold painting.

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G Sunshine

‘Sunshine’ – 16″ x 12″

My kid, the G Man, won’t let me paint without him. He’s done almost as much canvas work as I have! Here’s a quick multicolor work he named Sunshine. It’s a stark contrast to my darkness, which I love about his method. He says this is what the sun looks like up close. Pretty close, right?

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The Hecatomb Master

‘The Hecatomb’ – 30″ x 20″

Most of my work is without purpose. I just paint what I want and let the brush fall where it may. Not so with The Hecatomb. This large canvas was created with a book’s front and back covers in mind. The book by the same name will be out soon. It’s a sequel to this and this.

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If you liked these, here’s a few Painting with Darkness posts from history. Like this. And this. And this.

And the darkest of all my art appears on these.

Until next time.

J Edward Neill