Frankensteining angels, NFT updates, collaborations

Hey y’all,

Welcome back to the blog! Pardon the interruption between this post and the last — I’ve been traveling and life has gotten a little hectic in the interim. In today’s post, I’ve got some updates on the NFT hustle and some recent/upcoming collaborations, as well as more work on the Milton project.

In the land of NFTs, I’ve got good news and bad. The bad news is that my first NFT didn’t sell within the auction timeframe. Alas. Gas (the cost of conducting transactions on the blockchain) was very high for Ethereum, the cryptocurrency I was using to sell my NFT, so I’m hoping that’s at least partly to blame.

Satan’s head, Procreate… slightly modified. Perhaps a new NFT?

The good news is that I haven’t let that get me down! Huzzah! Gas has dropped substantially, so I’ve re-listed the Satan head study and listed a new one: the angel torso study. I’m selling the angel torso as a bundle, meaning that it’s two NFTs grouped together. The bundle includes the time lapse process video and the finished piece. You can find the bundle here and the re-listed Satan head here (sans frown and text, sadly).

Part of a lovely NFT package now available on OpenSea

And just a reminder that you can get prints of the angel torso on my Etsy! You can also sign up to receive monthly prints on Patreon (plus some other goodies and access to behind the scenes visuals). As always, you can find the full range of products and services I’m offering on the Shop & Learn page.

I’ve also been hacking away at more studies for the Milton project. I’m (slowly) working up an oil version of the Satan head study. With this one, I want capture Satan’s descent into depravity, so I started with an underpainting using the Zorn palette (a very limited palette invented by the great Anders Zorn). On top it, I’ve been getting wilder and weirder with the colors and textures.

Satan’s head, front view, oil on canvas (WIP)

The goal is for the distortions to get more severe as you go down the figure in terms of anatomy, color, brushwork, perspective, etc. It’s still pretty rough, and it’s definitely been a learning curve for me to figure out how to balance these two types of painting, but I like where it’s going so far. At the very least, I’m sure this study will teach me a great deal.

I’ve also gotten through my first full body pen and ink study of the angels that includes a head:

Full body angel study, front view, pen and ink

Like the back view study, I stitched this together using the various anatomy studies I’ve completed thus far. Here’s the back view for comparison:

The front view study is certainly weird enough for me, and there’s parts that I think came out well. Still, it looks a little too obviously Frankenstein’d for me. To fix that, I’m going to try working from figure studies I’ve drawn from life previously (or make new ones), and distort from there. To start, I think I’m going to try working from one of the last line/tone/value experiments I completed at The Art Students League of New York:

Line/Tone/Value, No. 7; mixed media on paper

More on that next time! In other news, I had a great time contributing poetry to Mei Yamanaka’s “Naked Tree” dance/video project. For the project, Mei worked with 15 different sound artists to create different versions of the same video. It was really cool to see how they all turned out! Everyone contributed amazing work, and the energy really shifted depending on the collaborators. The video I worked on with Mei is below; you can find the others on her YouTube channel.

Lastly, I’ve got another exciting collaboration coming up tomorrow night with musician and producer Kevin Shoemaker, a.k.a. Dandelot. Kevin is a seriously talented guy — if you haven’t checked out the tracks he’s released from his upcoming album, don’t sleep. You can find them on his YouTube, SoundCloud, and Spotify pages. Check out his website, too, for videos, VR, and other cool content. One of my favorite tracks from the album is below:

Kevin and I will be meeting tomorrow, June 2, around 8:30PM EST in virtual reality to livestream a joint session of live playing/producing and live painting. You can tune into it on his YouTube channel. Stop by and say hi!

That’s it for now. Have a great week and keep creating!

Satan's stages of grief, angel heads, and more!

Hi y’all,

Welcome back to the blog! This week, I’ve got updates on the shop, some forthcoming poems, and more work on the Milton project. First, I’m happy to share that I’m now selling originals online on Saatchi Art! You can find them by clicking here. I’m starting with a few pieces from my semi-abstract, surrealist eye series, including several of my hamsas. For those who don’t know, the hamsa is a symbol in Jewish and Muslim culture that keeps away the “evil eye,” protecting its owner and/or bringing them blessings.

“Hamsa (Base),” oil on canvas, 9’’ x 15’’ (for sale on Saatchi Art)

“Hamsa (Blessing),” mixed media on canvas, 12’’ x 16’’ (for sale on Saatchi Art)

“Hamsa (Space),” mixed media on canvas, 12’’ x 16’’ (for sale on Saatchi Art)

“Shipwreck,” oil on canvas, 26’’ x 30’’ (for sale on Saatchi Art)

The idea of this series is to explore liminal spaces — between abstraction and representation, Jewish and Islamic culture, energy and reason, etc. I’ll share more on that as I add more to Saatchi. As always, you can find more products and services in the “Shop & Learn” section of the website. And don’t be shy to inquire about other original paintings, drawings, or commissions via email at slreichmanart@gmail.com!

I’m also excited to share that I have two poems forthcoming in Sand Hills Literary Magazine. I’ll say more about them once they’re out in the world, but, for now, stay tuned, poke around their website, and consider purchasing a print issue!

Outside of all that, I’ve been making more headway on the Milton angels project. As I shared in the last post, I’ve been slowly (but steadily) stitching together the angel bodies à la Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (which, by the way, is also a retelling of Genesis). Here’s where I left off with the full-body pen and ink study:

Angel body, back view, pen and ink

You might notice there’s a crucial element missing here . . . and since I don’t intend on making headless angels, I’ve been thinking through how I might go about illustrating an angel head. I’m a sucker for the classics (shocker, I know), so I started off by distorting some Da Vinci and Michelangelo head studies I dug up in one of my anatomy books.

Da Vinci copies, with distortions; pen and ink

Michelangelo copy, pen and ink

Michelangelo copy - distorted, pen and ink

I’ve also gone through my usual process of doing an anatomy study and distorting it:

Anatomy study, muscles of the head and neck, pen and ink

Anatomy study - distorted, muscles of the head and neck, pen and ink

I don’t think I want to have something quite that alien-looking for the final version (maybe Satan at his most fallen?), so I’m still looking around and experimenting. I’ve even been distorting line drawings of people on the train. Do angels need to wear masks?

Observational drawings on the NYC subway, with distortions; pen and ink

On the painting side of the project, I’ve completed the oil study for the angel wings:

Angel wings, back view, oil and acrylic on canvas

As I’ve been working on the wings, I’ve been thinking more about how much visual chaos I can sneak into a painting before an angel goes from “good” to “bad.” This one’s a bit closer to good, but, when you get closer, you can see that I played a little more with color and texture than it looks like from a distance.

I’ve been thinking of this as an early stage of Satan’s fall, perhaps when he’s convincing other angels to join his rebellion in Heaven or leading the charge against the pro-God forces. In Paradise Lost, Satan’s fall from Heaven is only the beginning of his descent into moral depravity. As he gets further along, he grows more and more tormented by his decisions.

His outward appearance grows more distorted as his inner torment increases. Accordingly, as I’ve been painting more and reflecting on the studies I’ve already made, I’ve been looking at them as Satan’s “stages of grief.” The torso study might be Satan in Hell after the fall from Heaven.

Satan torso, back view, oil and acrylic on canvas

If you look closer, you can see there’s more warm/cool confusion in this one than the wings study. The torso study is now stretched and ready to go, by the way, for anyone interested in purchasing it.

The warm/cool and textural confusion grows more pronounced in the leg study I completed a few weeks ago. That one could be Satan traveling through Chaos, his corruption nearly complete.

Satan leg, back view, oil on canvas

That’s it for this week! I’ll be posting again soon with more progress on the angel head drawings, oil studies, and more. Thanks for tuning in! Have a great week and keep creating.