This is my revamp acrylic painting of Van Gogh’s original painting “A Meadow in the Mountains: Le Mas de Saint Paul”. I call my painting (above) based on Van Gogh’s original piece: “Multidimensional Portals in Van Gogh’s Hyperspace”. Below is a picture of Gogh’s original painting.
Van Gogh’s Original Painting
Depicted in both of our paintings are heavily colored pallets, defined brush strokes that converge into shapes resembling mountains, a barn, shrubbery, a meadow, a rather crudely shaped stream, and a brilliant sunset/ sunrise.
My painting includes a UFO off to the side, floating ominously. Hence the title to my painting. Meanwhile, Gogh’s painting features more shrubbery and contrasting colors in some areas.
How?
I emulated Van Gogh’s painting style which has been called impasto. Impasto paintings consist of very, very thick and copious amounts of paint placed blob by blob on top of or next to eachother until a desired appearance is achieved.
Impasto paintings are often highly textural in appearance.
I also used a photograph of Van Gogh’s original painting as a reference for creating my own.
Parts of this painting came to be quite systematically while others, like the sky, seemed to flow from out of me with no effort and lots of joy. The movement in the sky and in parts of the meadow reflect how I was feeling as I made them: joyful, energized, free.
Click the image above, the details will really stand out!
Conclusion
This piece made me feel like during parts of its creation I was merely a vessel for which the creation took place through me. It was as if the essence or spirit of Van Gogh was working through me in some areas. Of course, this could merely be a coincidental, natural phenomenon in which I was enjoying creating art. However, that is not a feeling I often acquire when making art and it is definitely not something I can do on demand. So..perhaps I should try something like this again in the future.
This is a graphite drawing on a piece of paper that is 9 by 12 inches. Depicted is what I consider to be a beautiful, attractive, young woman in a pose which captured my artistic attention.
Why?
I found a photograph of this girl in my travels and wanted to present her beauty in my own creative way. This drawing is a result of such, and I used the photograph I found as a reference.
I also am creating more graphite, realism pieces like this lately because I believe they will strengthen my artistic skill and capabilities. It’s not really my niche to work solely in realism, but I do think it will teach me something about artistic discipline as I continue to create more realistic pieces like this.
How?
Like all my portrait drawings, I start the piece with a basic outline of the subject I am drawing. I don’t have a photo of this piece’s outline, but here is an old photograph of a piece that is currently in progress. This gives you an idea of what the basic outlines I start with look like.
Here’s another example of a basic outline..
After the outline, I get to work on the shape of the face and usually try to pick one part of the face to focus on for a bit before working all over the piece. This gives me a more accurate foundation for me to base my details on.
Now that I’m fairly satisfied with the face I begin to shade below it.
Shading continues….
Now that I’ve nearly finished shading, I take some time to darken some areas and smooth out the shading. I also manage to bend the paper…lucky me, especially during the final stages in this piece’s creation. Ah well. I don’t get too worked up about mistakes anymore. Every artwork I’ve made is essentially a compilation of mistakes I eventually deemed adequate. You can quote me on that. In fact, I will quote myself on that.
And it’s done!
Conclusion
This piece was one of those pieces that wasn’t exactly easy nor too challenging. There will be more to come. Thanks for reading!
This is a 9×12 inch colored pencil drawing on a piece of paper.
Depicted is an abstract representation of a temple. It appears to be composed of gems and technological surfaces. I used vivid colors tried to stick to shapes with a futuristic aesthetic while maintaining an ancient touch to the pyramid like structure in the center of the piece.
Why?
I wanted to make something vertically symmetric and aesthetically pleasing, but I also wanted it to have an esoteric touch to its appearance. I wanted to create something that appeared both sacredly futuristic and ancient at the same time.
I wanted to create something that appeared holy or spiritual but that would appeal to people of any religious/spiritual stance.
It’s a similar idea to the painting above I have initiated that is a work in progress.
How?
Like most of my pieces, I start this one off with a rough graphite sketch of the basic outline. I start with a pyramid shape, adding a column on the left side, all while keeping in mind the symmetric nature of this piece. So, I know everything I do on the left side of the drawing must be reflected on the right side.
I refine some of the details and add a few more.
Add some more details..
More detail…
By now I’m done with most of the details. Now I’m about to trace over the graphite with ink.
Now that I’ve traced over the graphite details in ink I erase the entire paper to remove any trace of graphite. This is important as graphite and colored pencil don’t mix well and often create an ugly appearance.
I use colored pencil and apply the vivid wax to the paper, doing the bac
Depicted is a portrait of Nikola Tesla surrounded by blue lightning. Tesla was a total genius who was a master of understanding electricity, engineering, physics and more.
I based the drawing off this photograph of Tesla. I wanted to make it look like he was emanating powerful, dynamic energy.
Why?
I wanted to make an artwork that would give people something intellectually substantial to study. That “something” is Nikola Tesla and his works of genius.
Tesla, not Edison, is the true father of electricity and he pioneered the field in numerous, amazing ways. I highly encourage anyone who is even remotely interested in Tesla and his work to do their own research on the topic.
How?
I start the drawing with a very basic outline of Tesla.
I then add some facial details. Focusing on the eyes or any particular part of the face gives me a good foundation to base the rest of the details around.
I finish up the rest of the details. After I’m satisfied with the graphite part of this drawing, I erase the graphite where I want the electricity to be and add the lightning effect using blue colored pencils.
Finally, I darken some areas, mostly his suit.
Conclusion
Being that this is a portrait in my series of inspiring people, there will definitely be more pieces like this. So far, I have in this series Terence Mckenna, Alan Watts, and Steve Jobs. I had fun making this piece, the excitement of watching a piece of paper go from being completely blank to looking like a living being is hard to come by.
Thanks for reading! If you’re interested, this drawing is available as prints, posters, and other merchandise available here.
This is an acrylic painting on a 16×20 inch piece of canvas pad.
Depicted is a symmetric, geometric painting of various shapes, lines, and gems. In the very center of the painting there is a tiny blue portal. It’s not that the portal is actually tiny, just that it’s farthest away from the viewer’s perspective.
The alien, synthetic, technological appearance is symbolic of the new paradigm I acknowledge our species is creating and immersing itself in. I call it “Paradigm Portal” for this reason.
Why?
I wanted to create something synthetic looking. I wanted something symmetric and aesthetically pleasing and I wanted to make something close to my painting “Consciousness Storage Device”.
You can see how the color themes and visual ideas from this previous painting influenced the making of “Paradigm Portal”. The detailed line work is almost the same shape and color scheme, even the background copper tones of concentric circles leading into a blue center carried over into the more recent painting. I even used the same reflective copper paint.
I also wanted to mix things up a bit and add some of the new skills I learned from my painting “Suspended Enigma” into this painting. As you can see, I took the swirly, spherical white and blue orbs from “Suspended Enigma” and painted them into “Paradigm Portal”. I did’t just stick to orbs though, I used the same technique to make oval shaped gems on the edge of the painting as well as the much larger blue and white sections on the sides of the more recent painting.
How?
I started this piece by creating a graphite cross. This is the foundation of the artwork and allow for me to create the symmetric effect much easier.
I then draw the outline of the artwork in grahphite. I build up bit by bit, starting with a few basic shapes and expanding as I continue to maintain a symmetric appearance. Eventually my graphte outline is complete and I’m ready to start applying acrylic paint. Because graphite on canvas pad tends to smear easily I paint part of the outline with black paint.
Next, I start filling in the shapes and shading them.
Add some details…
Fill in the background and use a graphite pencil directly on the paper to create an outline for some of my line details..
And it’s done!
Conclusion
I really like the way this piece looks. I love how it shimmers as I move around the room, looking at it from different angles. I want to do this again, but next time I’d like to add more objects that emphasize depth in the painting. I’d just like to push the depth a little farther like I did in “Consciousness Storage Device.”
In this photo you can see how the background copper paint shimmers and shines.
Thanks for reading! If you’d like to see purchasing options for this piece, click here.
This is an acrylic painting on a 9×12 inch piece of paper. Depicted is a gem in the center. Surrounding this gem is a colorful grid like pattern or field.
I wanted to make a piece that would be creative and cool looking. I wanted it to appear like a pleasant machine as opposed to an industrial, cold steel machine.
Another painting of the cybernetic field.
I also wanted to create an imaginary device. A device that would create a field of energy around it when activated. I call this field the cybernetic field. I imagine that, like the internet, data is sent and received to different areas within the field. I imagined a type of field that would make it possible to send dreams, feelings, memories, and thoughts to other people interacting with the field.
A being integrating within the cybernetic field.
This field may serve as a metaphor for the internet. The internet may actually someday acquire the ability to transfer experiential information. This has amazing implications for the future. Humans would be able to learn at incredible rates if they could transfer their past experiences over the internet to be downloaded by someone and experienced in real time.
Someone interacting with the cybernetic field.
Some scientists theorize it will be entirely possible to record our dreams and re-experience them again after waking. Many also believe that memories can be recorded and transferred to other beings who never experienced them. My paintings of the cybernetic field depict a metaphorical template for such experiences to be transferred between beings.
Another being becoming absorbed into the cybernetic field.
Because I find this topic fascinating, I am considering creating an article pertaining to it in the future.
Why?
I suppose what fueled this creation was a craving for novelty and expression. I had some cool, possible ideas about the future and created this.
I was also bored and wanted something to do. This painting started as a drawing in the back of a car on my way back from Old Orchard Beach, a family vacation spot.
How
I started this creation by first drawing the oval shape that is the gem in the center of the painting. From there I expanded details towards the edges.
Next, I add more detail to the drawing’s outline.
After this, I paint the gem and start the painting process of the grid outline with black paint. This makes it so that when painting lighter colors I have to apply less layers.
Now, colors for the outline. I like colors. I crave them sometimes. I place colors that I know will blend well next to each other. colors. colors.colors.
Now I fill in the white boxes.
…annnnnd done!
Conclusion
This piece was fun and easy, with the exception of coordinating the colors in the correct spots so that they would blend well together. Filling in the boxes was surprisingly difficult, perhaps I should have started with the boxed colors first and added the lines after.
Thanks for reading! If you’d like to see purchasing options for this piece including prints, posters, and other merchandise you may do so by clicking here. If you’re on a computer purchasing links are found below the image. If using a mobile device you must scroll down to view these links.
What is it?
This is an acrylic painting on an 11 x 14 inch canvas. Depicted is what appears to be an expanding light, or an explosion. That’s why I named this piece “Artsplosion”. I wanted to make a piece that expressed how I felt at the time of its creation
Yellow and white beams protrude from the center of the painting, expanding outwards. It was a fun piece and an experiment with perspective. Why?
I made this piece at the beggining of a wave of creativity. Towards this painting’s completion, I had many new creative ideas for new paintings and drawings. This piece expressed how I felt in an artistic sense.
This piece is a symbol of climax and the birth of novelty. Many people see different things when they look at it, I find this amusing. I am repeatedly reminded of the subjective nature of art when people propose an observation relative to a perspective I had not yet considered.
I’ve found that people enjoy this piece from some angles of perspective more than others. This is an interesting spectacle to me that raises interest on the subject and consideration into my future projects.
For example, the image above is met with more appreciation on social media than the image at the top of this article. Not only is this painting an artwork, it has served as a social experiment on visual perspective. How?
I started with the background. The center was light blue and I worked from there towards the edges, gradually adding darker blue and streaks of green.
After allowing the background to dry, I created white ball in the center. I started adding streaks of white and yellow protruding from the ball, continuing until the ball was no longer a ball. Eventually I had the illusion of radiance.
I continued adding beams of yellow and white, making sure to create the illusion of different layers of space by separating the center “light” from some of the expanding beams.
On the beams which appeared closer to the perspective of the viewer I added rounded ends. This gave these beams the effect of moving away from the center in an outwards direction. I wonder what the end result would have looked like had I not decided to round the ends of those rays.
Conclusion
This was a piece that came naturally to me and that I enjoyed making with little effort. It reminds me a bit of my other painting “Spacetime Expansion“. I may return to this style again, although I see no reason to in the near future.
Thank you for reading! If you’d like to see availability of the original painting or prints/posters you may do so by clicking here.
This is an acrylic painting on a 9×12 inch sheet of canvas pad. Depicted is a dragon/serpent that appears to be existing in multiple planes of reality. I wanted to give the dragon the appearance of being made of flame
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The environment of the background is very chaotic, I wanted to make it seem like the dragon was in between dimensions and that these planes of reality were simultaneously existing and protruding into each other. I made it look like machines, lights, and liquids were coalescing in a very odd way. I imagine that this plane of existence has different laws of physics from that which we inhabit.
All in all, it’s a painting of a multidimensional flaming serpent traveling through its strange environment of multiple, overlapping realities.
Why?
After focusing heavily on some larger projects for a month straight, I wanted to make something quick. The pieces I had been working on previously were very detail oriented and required a lot of concentration. This piece allowed me to let go of attention to detail and just allow my creativity to flow.
I didn’t start the painting with the intention of making a flaming serpent. I just went for it. Eventually I had a shape that resembled the body of a snake. When that idea came up, it rooted in my mind and by then I had my specific intention set.
After spending so long focusing on the little details for some of my larger projects, it was a relief to be able to paint this picture of a serpent transcending time and space. In a way, it made me feel like I was transcending my own creative limitations and that is always a remarkable feeling.
How?
I didn’t care about making mistakes or creating something realistic or impressive. I started by painting the body of the serpent, then the head. When painting the body I used extremely thick and copious amounts of paint. This created a very interesting texture effect, making it appear as though the “scales” of the serpent were rising out of the painting.
After making the central shape of the body I added arms and claws, finally finishing by adding in the eyes after it was all dried. Drying took over a day, that’s a lot of time to dry for acrylics.
Now that the serpent was done I got to work on the background. I chose a bunch of random, fun looking colors and attacked. I didn’t care about it, I didn’t think about it, I just went for it. I had a flat background at one point and then I just started adding in random shapes of various colors. I really didn’t think too much about placement or shape, if it seemed like a cool shape to me I used it. I made lots of layers in this painting to exaggerate the illusion of being multidimensional.
In Conclusion
I had fun with this piece. I just let go and went for it. It’s of a similar style to my painting “Archaic Revival” and I think I will return to this style again soon.
Click here to see purchasing options for this piece. Note: The top of the painting is slightly frayed, a slight imperfection that I think adds to the chaotic look of the painting. I accommodate by reducing the price of the original painting. This will not affect how the painting appears in a frame.
Throughout adolescence I have seen cityscapes as both interesting and beautiful. I am fascinated by the towering structures reaching for the sky and the lights illuminating them at night. When I see the reflection of city lights on water I am intrigued.
Travel, Fascination, and Wonder
I’ve spent a lot of my life moving around and living in different regions of the United States. I’ve seen quite a few cities and the ones that stick with me the most are those that stimulate feelings of wonder and visual excitement. Pictures of cityscapes and urban scenes give me a similar feeling. Buildings like the Sydney Opera House, Oklahoma’s BOK center, and other modern looking and uniquely designed buildings are visually exciting to me. That’s because they invoke a sense of futuristic appeal which I reflect in my artwork again and again.
BOK Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma
I’m not sure exactly where this fascination came from, but as a younger child I remember enjoying a vivid imagination. That imagination is still mostly intact today, and I use it in my artwork. This imagination has also allowed me to see cities, in a sense, as centers of conglomerating, connected, and communicating information.
The Way I See Cityscapes, Roads, and Commuters
I see cityscapes sort of like motherboards within a computer. Each is a nexus of vast amounts of information that people are delivering back and forth as they commute. I see this as a sort of exchange of information, like electronic particles within a computer transferring information. This exchange and synthesis of information appears to happen in cities as well as computers.
In this way, I also see the roads and sidewalks people use as electronic wires. I suppose that would make airplanes the metaphorical equivalent of WiFi.
Centers of Interraction
Some cities never sleep. Day and night people are commuting to their jobs, home, school and more to take part in this nexus of information in some way.
Maybe they are going to have a conference where business information is exchanged, maybe they will exchange emotional information by meeting a friend downtown, or maybe they’re exchanging intellectually innovative information with a coworker.
While in the city, commuters regularly receive and process information as people would in any culture, however; commuters can take the information with them and spread it from city to city, from city to suburban, and vice versa and so on. Each major city is like the motherboard of a computer and the suburbs and surrouding areas are like smaller parts of the computer.
Similarly, networks of computers and the information they process never sleep. All day and night the internet is being used by people going to and fro.
Cultural Hardware
It appears the perpetual and highly connected nature of society follows a model of communication and innovation similar to a machine Integrated within a network of intelligence. What this implies for humanity and its relationship with technology, I would guess, is a continuing trend for humans to make themselves more like machines and for humans to make machines more like themselves.
“Why art?” is a question I ask myself nearly everyday, sometimes even knowing I don’t have a definitive and practical answer. My motives for creating art are so ambiguous that to try to sum it up into a few paragraphs or even a few pages is difficult for me.
The Evolution of Art
Art is a word that defines many things. The definition of art is being stretched day after day with the expansion of new technology allowing for more time to create and more things to create with.
What started as simple, humanoid figures and abstract representations of animals on prehistoric cave walls turned into a complex spectrum of mediums, styles, and techniques. The human mind has allowed us to move beyond the realm of physical representation, allowing us to create the illusion of space on both traditional surfaces and television screens. Countless television series, movies, video games and more are born. All of it is art.
Millions of people everyday interact with different forms of artwork from literature, to electronic media, to fine art and more. Hundreds of years ago this was not possible, not without the internet. Today, the internet connects artists to people, organizations, and other artists. This has allowed for tremendous progress, and not just for artists but for everybody.
Now we are getting to it. The question, “why“?
My drawing of Terence Mckenna.
Because art creates culture. To paraphrase a brilliant mind, Terence Mckenna (see above), on the subject: culture is to the human mind what an operating system is to a computer. The culture is a collective of ideas, an effort to literally realize our collective dreams.
If you have an outdated operating system on your computer, you cannot do certain things that you could do on the newer models, unless you upgrade your operating system.The obsolete operating system cannot comprehend the processes of the newest models. Likewise, the same goes for cultures.
Ideas Update your Culture/ Operating System
Remember how long it took for people to accept the now commonly accepted fact that the earth is a sphere that rotates around the sun and that we are not at the center of the universe? People were put to death for thinking this way in a culture which was not ready to accept the information because the dominant culture was outdated, obsolete, and could only accept information that supports itself.
This pattern of revolutionary ideas followed by accusations of heresy is repeated many times throughout history and has slowed scientific progress considerably for hundreds of years.
However, once enough people started catching on to and spreading the idea, it became accepted fact among the majority. This is because the idea was pushed out into the culture like a virus into a computer. Only this virus is a good one because it allowed for an obsolete culture to be overtaken by a more efficient one.
I want my art to be like the good virus. I want to create visual ideas that could be used to help create the new and improved culture, I would like to create art that may help open peoples’ minds to new possibilities and perspectives they may not have considered. I would also like to create and share art that shows the obsolete nature of the popular, dominant culture if possible.
I believe that art has the power to do this and much more, especially now that artists and millions of others have access to the internet. Ideas, memes, art, music, literature and more are all ways that culture can evolve and the internet is the nexus of all these great ideas.
An Example of When Art was Accelerating Cultural Understanding
Van Gogh’s “Starry Night” visually and simply depicts the concept of turbulent flow.
Van Gogh’s “Starry Night” was not just a magnificent painting but also a visual depiction of the concept of turbulent flow in fluid dynamics.
Gogh’s painting makes it easy for people to understand the concept simply by looking at the swirling patterns, yet it took mathematicians and physicians nearly 60 years to come to a decent explanation of the concept. It’s not because mathematicians and physicians are inferior, of course. It’s because art simply allows us to get a perspective of this particular concept in a more intelligible way than those fields.
Most everyday people would not understand the mathematical expressions for this concept if they saw them, but just about anyone can look at Gogh’s painting and see the concept plainly.
Why Else? To Inspire Contemplation, Creation, Communication, and Expression
It’s part of my mission to inspire as many people as I can to want to be an inspiration to even more. I want to create a chain reaction of creation and inspiration and I believe we all can play a part of this, even people who do not consider themselves creative.
I want to get people talking about important things. Things like the status of the dominant culture and things like our effect on the environment and surrounding cultures. I want like minded people to be able to connect through conversation about these things, I want people who may have differing perspectives on life to communicate and share their ideas .
Art Articulates the Ineffable and Connects People
“Holistic Consciousness” Acrylic on canvas pad.
Art turns thoughts and feelings into an object or a book or a performance. Art materializes the Immaterial. Art is a way of showing people that our ideas, feelings, concepts and more can be articulated and shared with each other. Art is a way of unifying people and encouraging progress if the context of the artwork suggests it.
Conclusion
I look forward to forging a new paradigm with the rest of humanity as we move towards the future. With art, the internet, and the innovation of science and technology I believe humans can achieve many things once thought impossible by an obsolete culture in a fading paradigm.
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Art by Maxwell Hanson 