Awesome. *Adds to DA watch list*

Quote from: CubeMelonClock;1425947If you stare at the elephant head long enough, it looks like a bearded sea monster.

Nietzsch'ethulu.

Quote from: AstronautClock;1426543this is incredible! greyclocks points dont apply to these kind of paintings..  I like this the way it is!

Just the opposite. His kind of points don't apply to things that AREN'T trying to have life-like physics, like cartoons, but apply to this sort of thing especially.

Quote from: Blackmagic;1426962Just the opposite. His kind of points don't apply to things that AREN'T trying to have life-like physics, like cartoons, but apply to this sort of thing especially.

no dude your missing thge point when a painting is this good dand the artist so obviously talented your not supposed to give him a few pointers that might just help him push future works in the truly exceptional category even though he might not be able to spot thgose minor flaws himself because hes been staring himself blind at this single work for what i can only imagine to be a prertty long time no only the uttering of short positive remarks good for notghing but maybe ego stroking and post count raising isi allowed

- The Clock Crew's mentality on giving critical feedback in recent years.

(add "even though the work is shit" for threads other than this one.)

Quote from: LeekClock;1426568Cool! Is there a meaning behind the imagery or is it simply a surreal scene?

I was inspired by the Dali show I went to last year at LACMA to do some surrealist work. I learned there was a great deal of meaning behind all of Dali's work and that he wasn't just painting random shit. I don't fully quantify this as surrealism though. It's more like fantasy or science fiction.

The ideas are based upon memories from my childhood and my fascination with nature. Combining possibilities through science, worlds that exist that we may never know of, psychedelic drugs...

Do you mind recealing some technical information, like what materials and type of colors you used?

Quote from: shit for brains;1427338Do you mind recealing some technical information, like what materials and type of colors you used?

I started by taking a 20 x 16 inch masonite board and applying 2 coats of gesso with a roller. Once that was dry I lightly sanded it with a 160 grit paper. I sketched the image directly onto the board with a charcoal pencil and sprayed it with a light coat of matte workable fixative.

The first layer was done in acrylic, so I could work quickly to block in the shapes and establish values. The acrylic paint also acts as another layer of gesso to seal the board completely. In acrylic only used Primary Blue, Primary Yellow, Primary Red, Raw Umber, and White. Since I planned to paint over it all with oil anyway there's no point in having too many acrylic paints around, and you can make just about any color you'd need with just the basics.

When applying the oil paint my method is to work background to foreground, and darker colors before lighter colors. The sky was done in a Bob Ross method by lightly coating the whole area with white/stand oil mixture first to get the surface wet. Using a 2 inch wide, long-bristle brush I painted the whole sky first as a gradient from the top all the way down to the horizon. It's a mix of French Ultramarine and Phthalo Blue. Using criss-cross strokes as you work your way across and down the color will get lighter as it blends with the white undercoating. While the sky was still wet I painted the clouds with Titanium White on a bristle fan brush. Then with a dry, 1 inch wide, long-bristle brush I soften the clouds with a swirling motion. Only the very tips of the brush should be touching the surface while doing this. After a few days of drying I went back and highlighted clouds with pure white.

The water mostly Phthalo Blue and tinted with Raw Umber for shadows and white for highlights. In the reflections of the plants there's Viridian added as well. The mountains and foreground are based on Burnt Umber and Buff Titanium to give them a warmer hue. Shading on the earthen areas was done by glazing over the dried midtone base. I added oil medium to the paint until it was very fluid; more like tinted oil than paint. This gives the paint transparency and smoothes the application.

The large, bulbous plants were based in pure Viridian and then, once dry, highlighted with white tinted with a very small amount of Cadmium Yellow. The blending was initially done with medium to small, filbert, sable brushes, and softened further with a dry, round, sable brush. I like the Windsor & Newton Eclipse Black Sable Brushes. Once that was dry I textured and shaded them with thinned down Viridian/Raw Umber on a very small filbert brush.

The elephant was based on Cadmium Orange Hue, and Titanium White, and tinted with a Raw Umber/Phthalo Blue mix. I try to avoid using any black from the tube. In the orange areas I added Cadmium Yellow for the highlights. Since the whole elephant required so much texture I first painted it without and texture at all to establish the basic form. Working with such bright colors proved to be difficult for getting the darkest shades. So I would often have to leave it to dry a day or two and go back to paint those areas over. I textured the whole thing with a #1 filbert and a #1 round brush, mostly by drawing in small lines over the whole thing and blending the colors directly on the canvas. It was important when changing colors to not clean the brush with thinner, but to simply wipe the previous color off in a rag. Thinner tends to stay in the brush for a while, even if you wipe it well, and this eats away at colors that you're trying to paint on top of.

To finish it off, I used titanium white to add highlights. I painted on the stars and just smushed them with my finger to blur them out. All and all, I spent about 40 hours on the painting.