This week's painting in focus is” A painting of one of the most fascinating places in our Solar System. Space and our celestial neighbourhood have enthralled me my entire life. Io is Jupiter’s innermost moon that is trapped in a tug-of-war between Jupiter's massive gravity and the gravity from two neighbouring moons that orbit farther from the gas giant, Europa and Ganymede. The result is a hellish place of Volcanoes and lakes of lava, making Io the most volcanic world in the solar system.“IO, the Volcanic Moon of Jupiter
I have had a real apprehension about painting on large canvases, but in this project, I felt that I had no choice but to go large. This new painting is a whopping 21" x 30" and the biggest painting I have ever done. This was an absolute joy to paint, but not without its frustrations. I have never really painted lava successfully before, and trying to get it to glow with a sense of molten rock was extremely tricky. This was achieved with the help of Neon paint and adding highlights and shadows to the rocks. It is amazing how this brought the scene to life.
The original concept painting was 10" x 8", which never really did justice to the chaos and drama of this tormented moon. The decision to switch up the size to 21" x 30" was part of the challenge of the piece. You can see the difference below. Scaling up the idea was a daunting task, but it gave me the freedom to explore and depict the otherworldly terrain. The result was a violent, foreboding alien world of volcanic eruptions, lakes of lava and sulphur gas. All this was missing from the original.
What do you guys think of these paintings? Was going bigger an improvement? Let me know in the comments below.
