SPIRIT OF ENDURING HOPE (2016) by Michael Whelan, week 47 in his LEFTOVERS & PALETTE GREMLINS gallery project.

I turned a smear of paint on my drawing table cover a tree. Other marks suggested rocks and became an island to which I added a figure. I started to paint in clouds but stopped because the image was getting boring.

It called for something else, but I didn’t have a clue what. Cthulhu rising? A dragon?

In search of further inspiration, I dropped a rag smeared with cobalt blue paint onto the scrap of matboard and took a quick shot of it with my phone. I wasn’t entirely happy with the mark the rag made, but I went ahead and painted what was suggested by the random mark, a floating female figure and a symbolic element composed of Gingko leaves in a circle.