The Beginning and End of an Idea
My first idea for this was to make a woodland village. A fantastical group of tree houses. In the top right of the canvas you can see the beginnings of this concept, as I changed my ideas half way through the painting. I wanted to play around with distance and perspective, so I started layering trees and bushes until there was a perfect clearing for an object to sit. Figuring out what to put in that space took longer than I expected. I kept bouncing between ideas, none of them sticking, until I was in the craft shop stocking up on green acrylic when I came across some glow-in-the-dark paint. And that’s when it hit me.
A Glowing Idea
A portal. I could make a glowing, magical portal. I bought the glowing paint and got to work. Using the bottom of a jam jar, I traced a perfect circle onto the canvas and coloured it in an extremely pale green. There’s a silent rule in painting never to use pure white or black because it’s too harsh to look natural. After layering the light colour around the portal to give it a textured finish, I covered it in the glow in the dark paint.
The portal didn’t quite fill up the space, so I added a broken brick wall to surround the portal. This was fun, I’ve never painted bricks before. I added some moss to match them to the green area. I was really happy with it! But the space still looked empty. Now, I absolutely cannot paint people. Not realistically, not stylistically, not even as a simple silhouette. But I kept imagining a small figure, someone witnessing the portal or maybe being drawn to it. So I went for it anyway. That’s what the little shape at the bottom is, to me at least. It could be a person, or it could be a floating orb perched on a stone pedestal. It’s intentionally vague. I love when art can be interpreted in different ways, so I like to leave plenty of room for imagination in my art.
I see it as me, just stepping through the portal into a peaceful land. Maybe it’s an escape from this hellish world and into the next, who knows? It’s the classic motif of the unknown. Something glowing, inviting, slightly unreal, but safe enough to step toward. Light is a symbol of guidance and revelation throughout art, so maybe its a portal to knowledge.
Supplies Used
- Medium Rectangle Canvas
- Acrylics
- Sap Green (and a lot of it!), Pthalo Blue, Indian Yellow, White, Black, Glow-in-the-dark
- Medium flat, Feathered, and Pointed paintbrushes