MICHAEL WHELAN • FLICK by Michael Whelan, week 8 in his 2016...

FLICK by Michael Whelan, week 8 in his 2016 gallery project LEFTOVERS & PALETTE GREMLINS.

Oil on Canvas - 11" x 14”

There was burnt sienna left on my palette so I started brushing strokes on a page in a canvas pad and it turned into this guy. I wish I could say where the idea came from. Sometimes doodles like this just come out of the ether.

As a side note: I think one of the most underrated factors in painting and sculpture is the artist’s feeling for gesture. It seems to me that all my favorite artists gave much thought to, or possessed a rare talent for, capturing expression through movement in their pictures…even when the subject was an invented one. So much about a creature’s temperament can be conveyed through a simple expression or pose.