One of my favorite paintings from my "Perspectives" series uses an incredible image of Orion Nebula and an illusionistic geometric shape. After the 26th painting of the illusory triangle, I still had the concept spinning in my mind even after the 27th icosahedron where I was exploring more complex geometry.
The research began. I started looking through a gajillion images of geometry and illusions and found this one. I liked that the middle cube shape can be seen convexly and concavely. I see it coming out most of the time, but when it switches to concave it's exciting to me. I also liked that the triangle form communicated with so many of the other previous pieces based on the shape.
Then to decide which space reference to use. I plugged in multiple options before deciding, but I found the best composition with this photo of young stars in the Orion Nebula. Then, I manipulated the colors to change the palette a bit. I wanted to play with some more vibrant hues.
Then to take the idea to canvas. I painted the canvas pink knowing that it would be the color of the lines and hoping it would bring out the pinks and purples in my reference. The taping really was a surprisingly fun part of the process. It broke the paintings into more bite-size pieces, and I could lay out my tape quickly from plotted points from my to-scale mock-up. I especially got pretty quick after I had already had some practice with the previous paintings with the same technique.
The last step was to fill the background using a dry brush technique and the final details for clean craftsmanship. Then it sat while I finished the rest of the series. I was aiming for 30 but finished at 32. My apartment was madness as you can see here.
If you've been following along for long, you probably know a bit about the series. You can find a more comprehensive post here or you can visit my website to see the whole series and my artist statement here.
