I came across a detail of what I believe to be an etching by Dutch artist Hendrick Goltzius, made in 1598, depicting townsfolk spectating a beached whale. I had mistaken the etching to be from an illustration of Gulliver's Travels, it having been posted as a comparison - perhaps suggesting an inspiration - to Swift's novel. Caught in the detail of the etching process (I was taken with the shading patterns), I somehow overlooked the wider view and found myself wanting to replicate the repetitive, curving background lines. I had mistakenly taken them to be Gulliver's pants; in fact, they are a massive rotting carcass.
After the comic was complete, I realized the scene I had been scrutinizing was not fictional but, rather, a documentary, and I was transfixed: seeing the people swarming the whale as ants, harvesting what they could before the putrescence would drive them away. Such an inadvertent bounty.
But I may be reading more into it than was intended. It's possible they were just viewing spectacle.
Anyway, I am somewhat happy with the attempt. The lines do provide some sort of hypnotic theme - a lattice or rigging that reminds me of the Yale Gallery of Art's staircase fencing from #193: the framework on which the universe is grown.
The depiction of the people is also satisfactory - motion and gesture, though there is no intended meaning behind it all; it is merely an attempt to draw.
Best of all, though, was the color manipulation that rendered a gray/blue/lavendar with a distinct peach/rose undertone that shines out. Totally unintended. I love that shit.
The title, " Liliputtin' ", from the mistaken idea that I was working with Gulliver. This mistake, of course, apt. One's perspective to always too small for us to know what it is that we are given to work with. But we toil on nevertheless.
I came across a detail of what I believe to be an etching by Dutch artist Hendrick Goltzius, made in 1598, depicting townsfolk spectating a beached whale. I had mistaken the etching to be from an illustration of Gulliver's Travels, it having been posted as a comparison - perhaps suggesting an inspiration - to Swift's novel. Caught in the detail of the etching process (I was taken with the shading patterns), I somehow overlooked the wider view and found myself wanting to replicate the repetitive, curving background lines. I had mistakenly taken them to be Gulliver's pants; in fact, they are a massive rotting carcass.
ReplyDeleteAfter the comic was complete, I realized the scene I had been scrutinizing was not fictional but, rather, a documentary, and I was transfixed: seeing the people swarming the whale as ants, harvesting what they could before the putrescence would drive them away. Such an inadvertent bounty.
But I may be reading more into it than was intended. It's possible they were just viewing spectacle.
Anyway, I am somewhat happy with the attempt. The lines do provide some sort of hypnotic theme - a lattice or rigging that reminds me of the Yale Gallery of Art's staircase fencing from #193: the framework on which the universe is grown.
The depiction of the people is also satisfactory - motion and gesture, though there is no intended meaning behind it all; it is merely an attempt to draw.
Best of all, though, was the color manipulation that rendered a gray/blue/lavendar with a distinct peach/rose undertone that shines out. Totally unintended. I love that shit.
The title, " Liliputtin' ", from the mistaken idea that I was working with Gulliver. This mistake, of course, apt. One's perspective to always too small for us to know what it is that we are given to work with. But we toil on nevertheless.