I’ve been reading the John Ciardi translation of Dante’s Divine Comedy lately. I’ve just recently finished up The Inferno, and have just gotten a few canto’s in to The Purgatorio. So, feeling inspired by that I produced the image here. It uses Sumi-E brushes for the inking and a coarse dry watercolor brush for the coloring. I think I’m happy with it, but frankly I’m feeling too hungover right now to be terribly analytical about it.
I must have produced two dozen pieces by now with the same basic structure as this one, a character in the foreground, generally to one side or the other looking forward at some large structure in the distance. It has just occurred to me just exactly where this particular visual archetype comes from…
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There’s a great deal of chagrin in discovering one’s influences isn’t there? But don’t sell yourself short. Your archetype is that of the Lone Wolf, the Cowboy and the Private Detective who stand outside of social systems but must pay the price of loneliness for their freedom. It’s a very American one.
By: rmangum on March 26, 2010
at 11:15 am
Ha ha ha! Is that Ninja Gaiden or what?
By: Michael on April 2, 2010
at 6:40 pm