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!

Limbs, wings, and lessons, oh my

March 04, 2021 in Milton project

Hi y’all,

Welcome back to the blog and another installment of my Wizard of Oz puns (I feel I owe it to my home state). This week, I’m happy to announce that I’m now offering private lessons in drawing, painting, and creative writing via nailit! You can sign up for them here. To see the full range of lessons and products I’m offering, you can also go the “Shop & Learn” section of my website (more there coming soon). Always feel free to shoot me an email at slreichmanart@gmail.com, too, to inquire about purchasing originals or commissioning a piece.

Enough of the sales pitch, though — let’s get nerdy! In last week’s post, I was exploring how to visually represent Milton’s ideas about good and evil. For anyone who hasn’t read that post, I think it comes down to organization. The more organized, the more sin-free, the more chaotic, the more evil.

I decided to go with a good angel for the angel arm study I was working on last week. Here’s where it ended up:

Angel arm, side view, oil study (finished)

With this study, I think I’ve started to learn how to distinguish the fallen and unfallen angels using color, texture, and brushwork. However, as I shared last week, I think this study veered a little too far from human anatomy to really read as an arm. For anyone who doesn’t remember what the piece looked like last week, here it is again:

Angel arm, side view, oil study (WIP; finished study above)

Even with the rest of the fingers there now and the rendering complete, it still feels a little too alien to me, largely because of the proportions. With that in mind, I’ve been trying to keep the next study a little closer to human. I’ve gotten wilder and weirder with the color, brushwork, and texture (this one’s a fallen angel), but I’ve tried to keep the forms and proportions a little closer to actual human anatomy.

More on that study soon! And tune in to Instagram Live tonight (Thursday, March 4, for those reading later) at 6PM EST for some live action on this piece.

I’ve also been prepping for an oil study of angel wings, which I’ll probably get started on next week. I started off with a pen and ink study of blue heron wings for a reference point, then distorted them and stuck them on a back view of an angel torso. Voila, angel wings:

Blue heron wing study (above), angel wing study (below), back view, pen and ink

To get a better sense of what I might do with the wings in terms of color and brushwork, I also got a Procreate study together. You can find it below:

That’s it for this week! Thanks so much for reading. 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!

Contemplating Satan

February 16, 2021 in Milton project

Hi y’all,

Welcome to this week’s blog post! Today, I want to share my thoughts on (eventually) illustrating one of Paradise Lost’s most interesting characters: Satan.

What fascinates me about Milton’s version of Satan is how likable (and, at times, relatable) Milton makes him out to be. Before his fall from Heaven, Satan (then Lucifer, meaning “light bringer”) is the most beautiful, radiant, and eloquent angel. These same traits play a big role in his fall. He’s able to persuade other angels to join his rebellion because his eloquence makes him persuasive. His radiance and beauty lead to a very weird, incestuous affair with Sin, who springs out of his head as a fully formed goddess (for my fellow classical nerds, yes, that’s an Athena-Zeus reference).

In the end, though, it’s Satan’s pride that leads to his downfall. When he first arrives to Eden to tempt Adam and Eve, Satan has a prolonged moment of doubt. It’s my favorite monologue in the poem (beginning of the fourth book, for anyone who’s interested in reading the full thing). He confesses to the reader that “pride and ambition threw [him] down” and wishes that he had been “some inferior angel”, so that he could have “stood happy”. The problem, however, cuts deeper: “Which way I fly is hell; myself am hell; / And in the lowest deep a lower deep / Still threatening to devour me opens wide, / To which the hell I suffer seems a heaven.”

Satan’s inner torment distorts his outward appearance. As he goes through waves of rage, doubt, and despair, they “[mar] his borrowed visage”. After the fall of Adam and Eve (spoiler alert), God even turns Satan and his fellow angels-turned-demons into snakes.

I want my depiction of Satan to capture both his luminosity before the fall and his gradual distortion through pride, rage, and sadness. This is what I’ve come up with so far:

I’m still tinkering with it, but I like the direction so far. After the last oil study (which you can find below), I wanted to get more experimental with the brushwork, color, and texture — basically, to get more energy in the piece, spice it up a bit. As I painted, I thought more and more about Satan’s dual nature, and, eventually, the two ideas merged into one.

Prepping for the Satanic torso involved a lot of pen and ink studies, most of which I put up in last week’s post. For comparison’s sake, I’ve included them below, along with one more I worked through before starting the oil study.

And, as always, I started with a human anatomy study, which you can find below:

That’s it for this week! I’ll be back next week with an update on the WIP oil study, some more pen and inks, and whatever other art news I have to share. Thanks for tuning in and have a great week!

More angels; send us your Iliad poems!

February 09, 2021 in Milton project, Consequence

Hi y’all,

Welcome back to the blog! This week, I’ve got an update on the Milton illustration project and a high-key pitch for you to submit your best Iliad-related poems to Consequence, where I work as the assistant poetry editor.

For those of you who haven’t read last week’s post, I’ve recently started work on a long-time goal: illustrating the angels from John Milton’s Paradise Lost. If you’re not familiar with the poem, it’s essentially a retelling of Genesis/the fall of Adam and Eve (but much more exciting and stuffed with drama). At one point, Milton describes the angels’ anatomy as “vital in every part”, capable of taking on whatever shape they please, and similar to the “fluid air" (check out last week’s post for the full passage).

Over the past week, I’ve gotten through two more pen and ink studies of the angel anatomy, this time of the back view of their torso. As usual, I started with a regular, human anatomy study:

then distorted it:

I’ve also worked up a procreate study of the back view of the angel torso, like I did for the front view. I decided to get a little more adventurous with the lighting and mark-making here. While it was more difficult than the last Procreate study, I think I also learned more along the way.

I also managed to get through the first study using oils. As I was working on it, I kept thinking about how the medium naturally translates Milton’s idea of the angels’ bodies being like the “fluid air.” In future oil studies, though, I think I want to get more out-there with the color choices and the background. Live and learn!

That’s it for this week on the Milton project. Outside of that, I’m very excited to announce that we have an open reading period through the end of March at Consequence. For anyone who isn’t familiar with the journal, we’re dedicated to art and writing on the culture and consequences of war. This coming issue, we’re launching a special project — “What is War Poetry?” — in which we’ll be asking fundamental questions about the historical development and importance of war poetry. For the first installment, we’ll be tackling those questions through the lens of the Iliad, the ancient Greek epic composed by Homer about the Trojan War/the beef between Achilles and Agamemnon. Send us your best poems that touch on the Iliad here! And stay tuned for future special issues. Next up: the Bhagavad Gita.

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

Welcome! (with angels)

February 02, 2021 in Milton project

Hi y’all,

Welcome to the blog! In an effort to be more transparent about my process, I’ll be posting here once a week or so. Stay tuned to keep up with current artistic projects — painting, poetry, and bears, oh my.

To get started, I want to share some studies for a project I’m excited about, although it’s still in early stages: a series of illustrations for Milton’s angels from Paradise Lost. For anyone who doesn’t know, Paradise Lost is a book-length poem that John Milton wrote in the 17th century. It retells the story of the fall of Adam and Eve. The poem starts with Satan’s fall from Heaven and ends (spoiler alert) with the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden.

It’s truly a great poem — a lot of work, to be sure, but one of my all-time favorites. Milton earns his place in my top five with this poem for the sentences and rhythm alone. If that’s not enough for you, it’s got torture (literally), heartbreak (figuratively), and adventure (both).

I first tried to read it a few years ago in Delhi, but ended up giving the book away to a friend. I tried again with a reading group the next year in New York, but we trailed off. Finally, two years ago, during my MFA, I managed to get through it. Third time’s the charm.

I was also studying artistic anatomy, drawing, and painting at The Art Students League of New York at the time. One passage in particular fascinated me:

”[…] for spirits that live throughout
Vital in every part, not as frail man
In entrails, heart or head, liver or reins,
Cannot but by annihilation die;
Nor in their liquid texture mortal wound
Receive, no more than can the fluid air:
All heart they live, all head, all eye, all ear,
All intellect, all sense, and as they please,
They limb themselves, and color, shape or size
Assume, as likes them best, condense or rare.”

The passage comes from book six. Raphael, one of the archangels, is telling Adam about the battle in Heaven between the pro-God forces and Satan + his soon-to-be-fallen angels. Essentially, it’s pointless — since they’re all celestial beings, none of the angels can seriously wound each other. Here, Raphael is explaining how their angelic anatomy allows them to quickly recover from their wounds. If you’re curious how the battle ends (spoiler alert, again), the Son drives Satan and his companions out of Heaven on a fiery chariot. They plummet through Chaos into Hell. It’s pretty great.

This passage has been tickling my art-nerd brain ever since I read it — what would muscles, fibers, and bones that form as freely as the “fluid air” look like? For every little part of a body to be independently and fully alive? And part of a single being?

Well, here’s my best guess:

For now, I’m working through these studies one section of the body at a time. The first is an angel torso, the second angel legs. Both are pen and ink (microns, to be exact). I’ve been starting with studies of regular human anatomy, then distorting them to fit Milton’s description. Here are the corresponding regular human studies:

I’ve also worked up an angel torso on Procreate. The idea was to think through how these studies might eventually work as paintings (color, brushwork, etc.).

I’ll be doing more studies in the coming weeks with pen and ink, Procreate, and, eventually, real-life oils. Stay tuned here and on Instagram to see more. Thanks so much for reading! Keep creating and have a great week.