drawing

Back to the angels, color chaos, and more!

January 25, 2022 in Shop updates, Milton project, Landscape painting

Hi y’all,

Welcome back to the blog! A very belated happy new year to you all. It’s been a while since my last post—things got crazy with the holidays, new job/s, and my teaching schedule—but I’m back!

First, I’ve got two happy announcements to share. One is that I made my first sale on Saatchi since I started using it last spring. For those of you who don’t know, Saatchi is the world’s largest online gallery. Here’s the lucky winner:

“Guarded Sunset” - 12’’ x 12’’ - oil on canvas

It found a home with a collector in Boulder, about 30 minutes north of us in Denver. In case you, dear reader, are interested in a piece yourself, feel free to check out my Saatchi page, shoot me an email to inquire about a piece or a commission, or peruse the Shop & Learn tab for more goodies.

The second piece of good news is that I have an interview out with VoyageDenver, a magazine that tells the stories of local creatives and entrepreneurs. We talked craft, how I got into the arts, challenges I’ve faced, plans for the future, and more! You can check out the interview here.

Now for the good (read: nerdy) stuff. Since the weather has gotten cold and snowy, I’ve been back in the home studio. If I can work up the nerve/buy finger warmers, I might do a winter plein air piece or two, buuut for now I’m staying inside.

As a result, I’ve turned my attention back to the Paradise Lost illustration project. In case you don’t remember, I left off with a few studies of Satan from Book I, where he and the other rebellious angels have recently been cast into hell.

I started off with a conte and gouache drawing:

Study of Satan, *Paradise Lost*, Book I - 16’’ x 12’’ conte and gouache on paper

then did a study on Procreate, where I though through some of the color problems:

Color study of Satan, *Paradise Lost*, Book I - Procreate

and now, finally, I’ve finished the full oil painting:

Satan Stands to Address His Legions, *Paradise Lost*, Book I - 30’’ x 24’’ - oil on canvas

One of my main challenges in this painting was staying true to the textual references, which are… tricky. Milton describes hell as being a “dungeon horrible” surrounded by a great, fiery furnace with flames that cast “[n]o light, but rather darkness visible”. Satan also walks on “burning marl” (a kind of stone). So… how does one create flames that cast no light? And how do stones burn without casting light? And how exactly are we supposed to see Satan if there’s no light shining on him?

For those of you who aren’t big painting nerds, rendering an object (i.e., making it look three dimensional) with no light source is… basically impossible. It kind of defies the laws of physics. To get around that, I decided that, given his recent fall (and God’s omniscience in the epic), we could afford a little bit of light from heaven still shining down on him—a way for God to keep an eye on the tricky rebel and for me to solve my physics problem. Thus the light source at the top. This also allowed to me basically ignore whatever light the ‘burning marl’ might’ve cast.

As for the lightless flames, I started off the painting with a relatively dark background, which allowed me to make bits of pure, saturated color pop while keeping their value low (that is, make sure they stayed pretty dark too). I later toned down the background, but I’m pretty happy with the ‘lightless flames’ that poked through in the end. Here’s an early stage of the painting for comparison:

One of my other main challenges was showing Satan’s corruption through the chaos in the warms and cools. As I articulated in an earlier post, I’ve decided to show the level of an angel’s (or demon’s) corruption through the contradictions in their colors. From a distance, the Satan painting may look fairly unified, but when you get closer, you can see the warms and cools knocking against each other:

All this angel painting got me thinking… Milton says angels look this way, but what about the source material—that is, the Bible? Well, that and watching Midnight Mass on Netflix, which I totally recommend.

Turns out, it says some pretty weird stuff. After a little Googling, I found that one of the main sources of Biblical imagery comes from Ezekiel I. Ezekiel sees the heavens open up and has “visions of God”—and, rabbis and theologians have inferred, angels. But they’re not exactly the winged, Cupid-like version we’ve grown so accustomed to.

Instead, some are made of two intersecting wheels, “sparkling like topaz”, and covered in eyes. Yep, you read that right: shiny wheel eyes. That’s what angels look like. According to Maimonides, a prominent Medieval Jewish scholar and philosopher, this was actually the highest rank of angels. Here’s a quick study I worked up for them:

Study for Ezekiel’s vision - pen and ink on paper

And it only gets stranger from there. The other angels — believed to be cherubim — are a hodgepodge of humans and various animals. They have four wings, two of which cover their bodies; the other two face upwards above them. Under these wings, “on all four sides”, they have human hands. Their legs are straight and human, but their feet look “like those of a calf” and gleam “like burnished bronze.”

Perhaps the strangest part of the cherubim are their heads. Heads, plural—four, to be exact. One, facing left, is an ox head. Another, facing right, is a lion head. The other two heads are human and eagle. Ezekiel doesn’t specify where they sit in relation to each other.

This got me thinking, so I started on some studies of the animal heads and working through some of the perspective problems.

Perspective and animal studies for Ezekiel’s vision - pen and ink on paper

As you can see in my notes in the upper left, Ezekiel’s vague description of the eagle and human head create an interesting problem. If they have “four sides,” as Ezekiel mentions when describing the position of their hands and wings, and if we presume that each side gets one head and one head only, then how exactly is Ezekiel able to see all four heads at once? Shouldn’t one be facing away from him?

It’s almost as if Ezekiel is seeing multiple perspectives at once. You know, the core ingredient in Cubism? Maybe Picasso wasn’t such an innovative genius and more of a Biblical scholar. Or maybe there’s a translation issue, or the Bible just isn’t meant to be taken so literally . . .

At any rate, it’s been a fun issue to think through! To do so, I came up with a line drawing/cartoon:

Cherub from Ezekiel’s vision, study - pen and ink on paper

In conclusion, the Bible is the best source of surrealist and modernist imagery. Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.

Alright, that’s it for this post! Thanks for reading, and keep creating!

Hello from Denver! And other updates

October 19, 2021 in Collaborations, Publishing poems, Shop updates, Landscape painting

Hi y’all,

Welcome back to the blog! I know it’s been quite a long time since my last post… in the neighborhood of three months, I believe. A lot’s happened since then.

As many of you probably know, I relocated to Denver, Colorado. I’ve lived in New York for the last nine years (with a few relatively brief excursions in Oregon, India, Jordan, and Lebanon). It’s been a big change. I’ve been here about a month, and so far I’m really liking it — lots of sun, the food is good, people are genuinely nice and helpful, and, of course, the mountains are only an hour away.

It feels apt that my first painting here and the last painting I finished in New York are both landscapes. Here’s the last one from New York; I’ve posted some of the WIP shots of it on the blog before:

Inwood Hill Park - 12” x 16” - oil on canvas

I painted this at a park in Inwood, the last neighborhood I lived in in the city, just down the road from my apartment. Inwood had long been one of my favorite spots in New York, especially Manhattan, so it feels right to have gotten one last image of it before I left.

It also feels right to start off here in Denver with a painting of the mountains. I grew up in Kansas City and came out to the mountains every chance I got.

This painting (and a number of others) is now available for purchase on Saatchi. And as always, feel free to poke around the “Shop & Learn” section of my website for other goodies or to email me directly at slreichmanart@gmail.com if you’re interested in a piece you see on the website or Instagram (or you’d like to commission a new one).

But back to the fun (nerdy) stuff. I’ve been trying to get a little looser, more impressionistic with my landscapes. I’ve always naturally favored a rougher, more painterly approach, but I’ve often felt myself conflicted between the desire to render more tightly, adhering more to “reality” (whatever that means) and the desire to let the brushstrokes do more of the work.

Between New York and Denver, I spent a couple of weeks back in my hometown (more on that later). While I was there, I went to the Nelson, the biggest museum in Kansas City. As I wandered around the French painting section, I found myself more and more drawn to the impressionists and post-impressionists:

A post-impresionist whose name I failed to take down… woops

Their free brush strokes and their impressive power to suggest form, light, even people and gesture with so little — that’s something I aspire to. I’m a long way away, but, fortunately for me, I’ve got some great landscapes to practice on here in Colorado.

I was back in Kansas City for a couple of weeks. My mom, as I suspect some readers here might know, was having surgery to remove a benign tumor on her brain stem, and I was in town to spend time with her before and after the surgery. This was her third round having the tumor removed since 1999, and it was definitely trying for her and the rest of the family, especially with the pandemic still strong in the Midwest. That’s made me all the more grateful to have such strong, supportive loved ones. The surgery was a success, and my mom, trooper that she is, is doing much better.

During my time in KC, I got a few sketches in of my mom’s recovery. I drew this a few days post-op:

And this I drew after she was released from the hospital and was recovering at home:

In a strangely well-timed development, I also got my contributor copies of the two poems I had accepted for publication way back in April right as my mom was getting through the worst of the recovery. They’re both about family, and one (I’ll let you guess which) I actually originally wrote for my mom’s birthday. It’s been through a good amount of revision since then (they both have), so it’s great to see them out in the world.

Mother Memories, published by Sand Hills Literary Magazine

Heaven Cannot Hold Her, published by Sand Hills Literary Magazine

There’s a lot of gorgeous work in this issue of Sand Hills Literary Magazine, the journal that took them, so please consider supporting their amazing work by purchasing a copy of the print issue!

I’m also happy to share that my drawing of my partner’s cat, Cashmere, was invited to an online exhibit organized by Exhibizone and distributed by Biafarin. You can check out my page on the online exhibit here. And here’s the drawing:

Cashmere - mixed media on paper - 16” x 12”

The exhibit is open til the end of the month, so be sure to stop by and check it out soon! And in case you’re wondering, yes, Cashmere knows how cute she is.

Finally, I’m happy to share that my collaboration with musician, producer, and 10/10 good friend Kevin Shoemaker, a.ka. Dandelot, went great! I made eight digital drawings for Kevin’s debut album (one for each track), and we released one a day, along with behind the scenes info on the making of each track, in an exclusive online exhibit — Chanukah came early this year.

We’ll be selling posters with all eight drawings soon. In the meantime, check out our discussion on the collaboration below, and be sure to get signed up for updates on the album release, album swag, and more here!

That’s it for now! I should be posting here more regularly now that I’m relatively settled. In the meantime, thanks so much for reading, and keep creating!

The many mediums of Satan

July 13, 2021 in Collaborations, Milton project

Hi y’all,

Welcome back to the blog! I know it’s been some time — sorry about that, things have been crazy. Since I last posted, I’ve been working on some new Satanic art for the Milton project, making some progress on the plein air painting, and plotting a new collaboration.

Let’s start with the new versions of Satan I’ve cooked up. I’ve turned the scene from Book I of Paradise Lost where Satan and his legions have been cast into Hell into a Procreate drawing. For a refresher, I had already worked up a conte and gouache drawing of this scene. Here’s that piece below:

Satan, fallen, stands to address his legions in Hell - conte and gouache on paper

As you can see, the first drawing was in black and white. The Procreate drawing was meant to help me think through some of the color questions I’ll be facing when I make this into an oil painting.

Satan, fallen, stands to address his legions in Hell - Procreate

Speaking of oil painting, I’ve finally finished the oil study of Satan’s head. As you can see above, my goal when painting Satan is to get as much chaos in the colors as possible in order to visually depict Satan’s inner turmoil. For the head study, I wanted to capture Satan’s descent into moral depravity, so I started with an underpainting using the Zorn palette, which only has a couple of colors. As I began working in the thick, impasto, chaotic blends of warms and cools, I ran into a problem — as I added more warm, it canceled out the cools, and vice versa, plus I was having trouble controlling my values (lights and darks). Here’s where the painting was when I last posted it:

Nothing a trip to the Met won’t fix! I decided to go poke around the impressionists, post-impressionists, and pointillists, and, sure enough, I found the fix. The key, as usual, lay in massing — creating large masses of light and dark, warm and cool, before adding smaller variations within them. If you look at this Renoir, for instance, the values and colors look blocked in in large shapes from a distance:

Renoir piece in the Metropolitan Museum of Art

But if you get closer, you can see smaller variations in color and value inside the masses:

The same is true for this pointillist piece (I failed to take down the artist’s name, unfortunately):

Pointillist piece at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

With that in mind, I came back to the Satan head study. Focusing on massing first, I was able to work in more color chaos without messing up the values. That, plus a little stand oil, and voila, Satan:

My take is a lot more painterly and saturated than the Renoir or the pointillist piece (what can I say, I like big brushes and loud colors), but, if you look closely, you can see the same mass-first-vary-later principle at work:

In some less unsettling painting news, I’ve also been making some progress on the plein air WIP I posted last time:

Between the tropical storms, flash floods, and heat waves, the weather has been keeping me painting indoors lately, but hopefully I’ll be able to get back out there and make some more progress on this soon.

In other news, I’ve got another collaboration coming up with my friend Kevin Shoemaker, a.k.a. Dandelot. For anyone who doesn’t know, Kevin is a really talented musician and producer. Kevin and I hung out in virtual reality a few weeks ago to do some live painting and playing/producing. If you missed it, check out the video below:

Kevin is releasing his debut album at the end of the summer. As part of the album release, I’m going to make a piece of visual art for every song, which I’m really excited about! You can keep up with the project and Kevin’s album release by stopping by his website and signing up for updates.

That’s it for this week! Check back in for more updates soon. Til then, have a great week, and keep creating!

Satan! + some non-Miltonic art

June 15, 2021 in Collaborations, Milton project

Hi y’all,

Welcome back to the blog! This week, I’ve got some new work on the Milton angels project, some plein air painting, and an update on collaborations. On the Milton side of things, I’m excited to share that I finally got through a finished drawing of a full-body (fallen) angel, head and all! Of course, I started with the best character in Paradise Lost: Satan.

Satan addresses the fallen legions in Hell, Paradise Lost, Book I — conte and gouache on paper

This drawing started off as an attempt to fix the problems of the last full body angel I completed. That study, done in pen and ink on much smaller paper, came out a little awkward and too obviously stitched together for my taste. Here’s a reminder of what that looked like:

The first attempt at stringing together a full-body angel — pen and ink on paper

On the first angel, I worked from the previous anatomy studies I’ve completed for the Milton angels project, but I didn’t have any overall guide to reference (other than some gestural lines I made up at random). The result was an unfortunately clunky figure, a bit cartoonish and awkward. I’m much happier with the second one. For that drawing, I combined a finished figure drawing I did at The Art Students League with my angel anatomy studies. Here’s the finished drawing I was using as a reference:

Line/Tone/Value No. 7 — Conte, pen and ink, and gouache on paper

The latest study started as an attempt to improve upon the shortcomings of the first full body angel, but, as I worked, it developed a life of its own. The staff of the figure reminded me of Satan’s spear from the beginning of Paradise Lost. The distorted head looked like a fallen angel.

So I decided to turn it into a scene near the beginning of the epic. Here, Satan and his legions have been cast out of Heaven, fallen through Chaos, and landed in Hell. Milton describes Hell as a “dungeon horrible” around which “one great furnace flamed”. However, Hell’s flames cast “[n]o light, but rather darkness visible”. To capture that, I kept some light on the top of the figure, but kept the flames on which Satan stands dark.

Milton also describes Satan as carrying a “ponderous shield” and a massive spear from the battle in Heaven. The shield is “massy, large, and round” and “[hangs] on his shoulders like the moon”, while the spear is the size of “the tallest pine / Hewn on Norwegian hills”. I had a lot of fun playing with the scale of the imagery there.

For painting these past two weeks, I took a break from Milton-related work to do some plein air. The plein air painting is still in progress, but it’s been so nice to get outside and paint when the weather’s nice. Check out the WIP below:

More updates there soon. And don’t forget you can get behind-the-scenes time lapse videos and process photos of this painting, the Milton illustrations, and whatever else I’m working on by subscribing to my Patreon!

I also got to spend a night painting and chatting with the very talented Kevin Shoemaker while he produced music for us in virtual reality. It was a strange and fun experience, one very apt for the (hopefully?) tail end of COVID. Check out the video of our collaboration below:

And here’s the finished version of the painting I made to Kevin’s music:

Collaborative painting with Kevin Shoemaker, oil on canvas

You can find the rest of Kevin’s virtual reality hangs, as well as some great singles from his upcoming album, on his YouTube channel. And don’t forget to stop by his website, too.

That’s it for this week! Thanks for stopping by. Have a great week and keep creating!

Satan's head, Patreon, NFTs, and more!

May 04, 2021 in Milton project, Collaborations, Shop updates

Hi everyone, welcome back to the blog! This week, I’ve got some exciting announcements and some more work on the Milton project. First, I’m happy to announce that I’m now on Patreon! You can support at a variety of levels to get access to exclusive process photos and time-lapse videos, sneak peaks of upcoming performances, lessons and critiques, and all kinds of visual art products. Check it out, and thanks in advance to any and all supporters!

As usual, you can also find the full range of products and services I’m offering on the Shop & Learn section of the website. As of now, I’m selling originals and prints and offering private lessons, in addition to the goodies available on Patreon. I’ll be selling NFTs soon, too — more on that at the end of this post.

I’m also excited to share that I’m taking part in dancer Mei Yamanaka’s upcoming video project, “Naked Tree.” Mei’s collaborating with 15 different sound artists for the project, and I’m so happy to be one of them! I’ll be doing a short intro to our collaboration on May 9, so stay tuned for updates there! You can also get a sneak peak of the video on Patreon.

From Mei Yamanaka’s upcoming video project, “Naked Tree”

I’ve also got some exciting updates on the Milton project. I’ve been thinking more about illustrating angels, fallen and unfallen alike, from the front, as I’ve mostly been focusing on the back view til now. First up: wings.

Blue heron wings (above), angel wings with torso (below), front view, pen and ink

As with the back view, I started off by doing a study of blue heron wings, then distorted them and added the torso for the angelic version. I’ve included the back view below for comparison:

I also worked up a Procreate study of Satan’s head. As I shared in my last post, I think the distorted anatomy study I drew is a little too alien to be anything but a very fallen Satan. Here’s a refresher of what that looked like:

Distorted anatomy study, muscles of the head and neck, pen and ink

Since I’m thinking of this as Satan at his most fallen, I got pretty wild with the colors and textures on Procreate. I also played around a lot more with layers this time, so be warned: the process video is kind of a light show.

I’m happy to share that I’m turning this study into my first NFT! For anyone who isn’t familiar with NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, they’re essentially a way to create a one-of-a-kind digital copy of a piece of artwork that can be bought and sold with cryptocurrency. It’s a rapidly developing market, and I’m excited to dive into it! You can find the Satan head NFT by clicking here. Bidding starts Thursday at 5PM EST — hope you stop by and check it out!

That’s it for this week. Thanks for tuning in! Have a great week and keep creating.

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

April 14, 2021 in Milton project, Shop updates, Publishing poems

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:

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 - 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.

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.

Slowly but surely...

March 23, 2021 in Milton project

Hi y’all,

Welcome back to the blog! This week, I’m happy to announce that I’m now offering prints of the front-facing Procreate angel torso study. You can purchase them online via Etsy. I’m really pleased with how they turned out, so be sure to take a look!

Angel torso, front view, Procreate (print)

Angel torso, front view, Procreate (print, with pen for scale)

I’m selling two other prints on Etsy, too, and will be adding more soon, so feel free to poke around! As I shared in the last post, you can find the full range of products and services I’m offering on the “Shop & Learn” section of the website.

Now for the fun stuff! Over the past couple of weeks (sorry for the gap between posts, it’s been crazy), I’ve been hacking away at the remaining angel body parts. First, I managed to finish the oil study of the angel leg. This time, I got a lot more adventurous with the texture and color work, really emphasizing the visual chaos of the fallen angels.

I’m seeing this one as a study for Satan as he travels through Chaos. It’s one of my favorite scenes in Paradise Lost — utterly bizarre, science fiction-esque, and sonically delightful. For anyone who’s interested, it’s the end of Book II.

I’ve also been working through some preliminary sketches of what the whole angel bodies might look like. As usual, I started with a pen and ink study. This time, rather than starting with a human study and distorting it, I Frankenstein’d together the various angel anatomy studies I’ve done thus far.

To get a better idea of where I might go color-wise with this, I also worked up a Procreate study.

I’ve also been working on an oil study of the angel wings. Just to get a little variety, I’ve been pushing it in an unfallen angel direction, keeping the color and values relatively traditionally organized. I’ve been primarily referencing the pen and ink study of angel wings I did a couple weeks ago. You can find them both below.

Blue heron wings, back view, pen and ink (above); angel wings, back view, pen and ink (below)

The oil study is still in early stages, but I’ll have more on that soon. That’s it for this week. Thanks so much for tuning in. Have a great week and keep creating!

Good angels, bad angels?

February 24, 2021 in Milton project

Hi y’all,

Welcome back to the blog! This week, I’ve been thinking through how to represent John Milton’s ideas about good and evil in paint.

As I shared in last week’s post, I’ve been working through how I might illustrate Milton’s Satan. The tricky thing is that Satan is radiant, beautiful, and, in some ways, good, but grows more distorted and tormented as the epic progresses. To get at both of these ideas, I wanted the luminosity to really pop while also using a wider, wilder array of colors, textures, and brush strokes. In the end, this is where I landed:

Satan torso, back view, oil study (finished)

After finishing the Satan torso oil study, I moved on to angel limbs. As usual, I started with a pen and ink study of the human anatomy, then distorted it. I did them both on one page this time to make the comparison a little more user-friendly:

Human arm (left) and angel arm (right), pen and ink

I started the oil study soon after completing the pen and ink drawings. To be honest, I don’t think I’d actually decided whether I was painting a good angel or a bad angel before I started painting. I’m still not finished, but I’m leaning towards good.

In my view, the source of sin in Milton’s universe is a combination of doubt and arrogance. Satan falls because his arrogance leads him to believe that it’s somehow a good idea to start a rebellion against an omnipotent ruler (God). He leads Adam and Eve to their fall (and to his own subsequent torture in Hell) because he doubts his ability to redeem himself. Between these two character flaws, Satan is his own worst enemy. Adam and Eve fall for similar reasons. Beguiled by Satan, they doubt God’s commandments, trusting Satan’s pseudo-logic instead.

If doubt and arrogance are the two primary sources of sin in Milton’s universe, then I think that painting a good/unfallen angel is less about keeping out the darker, more turbulent colors, brushstrokes, etc., and more about keeping the visual language consistent and organized, no matter how dark or light it gets. Because this piece is, so far at least, more traditionally organized than the Satan torso, I’m leaning towards “good angel” for this one.

I do think this study got a little too distorted to really be believable as an arm, angel or no, so, as I get ready for my next study, I’ve been thinking a lot about just how far I can distort the anatomy before it ceases to read as anatomy at all. To that end, I’ve worked up a Procreate study of an angel leg, keeping it a little closer to human anatomy than the direction I’ve been heading in for the oil arm study:

It’s been a few posts since I’ve shown the original pen and ink studies that the Procreate leg is based on, so I’ve included them below:

Angel legs, side view (left) and back view (right), pen and ink

Human legs, side view (left) and back view (right), pen and ink

That’s it for this week! Check back in next week for updates on the Milton project and any other art news I’ve got to share. Thanks so much for reading, and have a great week!