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My weblog ELECTRON BLUE, which concentrated on science and mathematics, ran from 2004-2008. This weblog, which is more art-oriented, is its successor. Please visit the archives of ELECTRON BLUE using the link to the right.

Sun, 07 Nov, 2010

Darkover Idyll


This is a fantasy picture and thus does not fit the criteria for "fine art," but I'm showing it here because it is a very nice picture and I'm getting better at working with digital painting. The title is "Darkover Idyll," and it is influenced by the American Luminist painters such as Thomas Cole and Frederic Church. Cole did allegorical paintings which would be considered fantasy nowadays, because they depict knights and castles in a romantic setting. This one of mine is more "fantasy" than Cole, though, because the sun is red and there are two moons. I have always found it interesting that Thomas Cole's moralizing, romantic allegories were considered High Art in the mid-nineteenth century but if they were painted now they would be relegated to the world of superficial entertainment art.

Darkover is the world made up by Marion Zimmer Bradley, in which fantasy and science fiction co-exist under a red sun. There is magic and psychic powers, but also an interstellar empire and space ships and colonists from Earth. There are alien races, some of them sentient, and there is medieval-style warfare fought with ancient weapons and psychic magic. There's something for everyone on Darkover. This is a scene of a peaceful place on Darkover, where the old castle has not been used for warfare in many years. It's my first "authentic official" matte painting. Matte paintings are big open scenes that can be used as background for close-up action in films or videogames. The shape of this image is not the wide panoramic rectangle used in matte paintings, but it could be cropped to fit that shape if necessary.

You can view a larger version of "Darkover Idyll" here.

Posted at 1:35 am | link