Creating a painting is like exploring a maze. You never know where the process will lead you. Over the painting's evolution, there can be many twists and turns. And if you encounter a dead end along the way (which sometimes happens when the painting isn't working out as you had hoped) you simply retrace your steps and pursue a new direction. The interesting thing is, encountering an obstacle like this can sometimes prompt you into creating a better painting in the end. As an example, my painting “The Oil Age” began simply as a depiction of a dinosaur eating a car. But along the way, I had insights which I believe allowed me to produce a far richer image. Here is the story of how that painting came to be.
Allosaurus by Charles R. Knight, 1904
Typically I like to begin a painting by making a drawing or two of my initial idea, so I can plan out the composition. However, on this occasion, I made a digital collage with Photoshop, using imagery I had gathered online. My intention was not to precisely reproduce this mockup as a painting, but rather, have it be a guide for the overall flavor of the image.
Photoshop mockup of my concept
I constructed a large canvas and gave the surface a wash of yellow ochre. I like using a warm undertone for my base layer as it makes a far more pleasing color upon which to work than a blank white canvas. I then began blocking in my composition, referring to my digital mockup.
It wasn’t long, however, before I found myself struggling over my composition, particularly with the elements in the distance. I found myself confronting one of those dead ends I spoke of earlier.
At first I tried reworking the image several times, adding and removing things within the landscape, but I eventually realized my composition was failing to function as planned. It was disappointing. My painting was bland and lacked drama.
This is when I made the bold decision to paint over everything I had done so far, leaving only a few parts untouched. As much as I hated to do this, it liberated me from the stalemate I had encountered with my unsuccessful composition. And it gave me a new foundation from which to begin again. I was now choosing a new path to follow through this creative maze.
One of the things that had bothered me about my first attempt at this painting was how the foreground and background did not feel congruent. The lake I had painted in the middle distance basically split my painting in half. And it seemed the contour of my dinosaur was becoming lost against this backdrop. So I decided to turn my landscape into a mist-shrouded forest, hoping this would unify my image.
As I followed this new direction, I knew I had made the right decision to paint over my first attempt. I placed the dinosaur and cars within a forest clearing, which gave the backdrop the feeling of a theatrical stage. The image still wasn't dramatic enough however. There needed to be something else that I could add to take the painting to a whole new level. This is when I had an epiphany. What if instead of just trees, there were also decaying billboards and signs interspersed within my forest? Maybe these signs could include gas station logos. Since my art tends to focus upon issues like the ecological impact of consumerism, I believed adding a forest of signage could give my painting deeper significance, as it could become a critique about the oil industry and its ecological legacy.
I drew a few rough pencil sketches to investigate my newfound idea. I envisioned my landscape filled with a cacophony of logos. I believed this riot of colorful signage would inject the vibrancy and drama I sought in my painting. So I searched online for visual reference material of oil company logos, and began painting them into my composition. This proved a bit more challenging than I had anticipated however. I found it difficult to introduce the myriad colors and shapes into my work in progress, and still maintain a balanced and cohesive composition.
The painting was definitely looking better now that I had added the signs. To help knock down the intensity of the colors, I added a few layers of translucent glazing to the overall scene, which helped give the forest a muggy, humid atmosphere. I also made subtle changes to the T-Rex and cars. Another element I added was to have the signs display the price of gas as “505”. This may have been too obscure a clue for my audience, but I thought this number resembled the distress code of “SOS”, and this reinforced the ecological message within my painting. (Ironically, the price of gasoline has already exceeded this amount.)
I was thrilled with how my painting had improved, but there were still a few minor things that bugged me. For example, I felt the volcano in the distance was not visible enough. So I painted an opening through the tree line, and added a stream flowing through the forest. This gave me the room to enlarge my volcano significantly. It also allowed the T-Rex to stand out more prominently, which is exactly what I wanted.
At this point, the background looked finished to me. However I still wasn’t content with the shape of the dinosaur. It seemed too svelte. I wanted a more burly T-Rex. So I changed the dinosaur’s anatomy by enlarging the head, and gave it beefier legs. I also changed the lighting on its skin to better integrate within the scene.
I then made a few final adjustments to the foreground, such as adding a Phillips 66 sign and rearranging some of some the ferns and roots. I also added some plastic bottles floating in the water near the bottom of the image, and a human skull tucked beneath an overturned tree stump. I sometimes like adding small details like this in my paintings as they can become little gifts to surprise the viewer.
And so, here is the final result.
I consider the painting to be an allegory about our society and its dangerous addiction to fossil fuels. The dinosaur is meant to represent the violent forces we have liberated from the ground. It could also be seen as a specter of extinction. As we rampantly consume things like coal, oil, and natural gas to drive our economy forward, these very substances are negatively harming our existence. The tremendous amount of CO2 and other greenhouse gases we have released into the atmosphere will have ramifications for all life for centuries to come. Our actions are producing mass extinctions. Perhaps we will fall victim to the same plight. I envision a time, far in the future, when the only evidence of our existence will be a geologic strata buried deep within the earth. This curious formation will be the remaining vestige of an era of human beings, known as the oil age.