the pause
Beneath the Waves
THE PAUSE
50 cm. x 40 cm. Oils on canvas.
The Pause: a painting made to illustrate an merfolk’s inspired publication.
I was commissioned to publish my work on a wonderful book which is inspired by the mythology of underwater living beings of legend, so how could I refuse?. In this case, I wanted to go for a more unusual route, something more on the lines of a Triton or Poseidon style/reference, instead of a more usual direction like depicting a mermaid or the like. The painting was very well received by the publishing company The Art Oder, and my painting was included among the work of many other amazingly creative artists, sharing the space within the book’s pages with other paintings, sculptures, poems, short stories, etc. For the Special Collector’s Edition, the book had a hard cover, a protective sleeve and as well some pins and postcards, for which my painting was again included for publication.
A part of the painting’s process:
1 - Preliminary idea
2 - sanguine pencil study
3 - digital tonal test
It serves to see the composition in a “ground level base”, to study its direction.
4 - Rough colour study
This stage it’s only to have an approximated idea of where I want to go with the colours, when at the end the final colours took into a different direction.
A close up shot of the finished painting.
“dead layer”
The first defining layer already applied on the canvas. In this case, this is a neutral tone in oil paints, such like Raw Umber.
The Beneath the Waves book:
The hard cover version.
Gilded page edges in silver and gold.
Book’s protective hard sleeve, with a window to see the cover’s Art.
Interior of the book with my painting included on its pages.
the Pause
This publication was incredible to work with, not only the coordination for the whole project was great, also the creative freedom and the idea of wanting to show the most as possible the variety and rich possibilities of having so many different artists working on it. It was an honour for me to be a part of it, specially when the end result was as well of such good quality in print and edition terms.