TABLETOP RAMBLER (2016) by Michael Whelan, week 15 in his LEFTOVERS & PALETTE GREMLINS gallery project.

I was chatting with Jordu Schell on the phone one night last week while working on a painting. I should have known better than to try to get serious work done! He’s too entertaining to listen to. ;)

After a while, I put aside my illustration and became fascinated with an accidental shape on my tabletop. Some months before I’d made the mark with a sponge saturated with brown paint—I often use sponges to create textures in my acrylic paintings—but now as I stared at it, a creature appeared before me.

I sketched an outline in chalk and painted in the creature while chatting the hour or so we were on the phone. By the time we said our goodbyes, I had a beastie walking across my table. Subsequent conversations over the next day or two gave me time to add a moon and other details, employing the colors I had on hand at the moment.

He looks determined to make his way, and I’m betting he has a sizable appetite. Better steer clear of him!

Source: michaelwhelan.com

You’ve mentioned being involved with movie concept art. Was there a movie you wish you’d worked on, or one that came out that had work you wish you’d been able to try?

I’m continually floored by the imagination and skill I see in movie concept art, so I don’t feel there’s much I would have been able to add to most movies I’ve seen. But one exception did come to mind, and that is the film adaptation of Stephen King’s THE MIST. Though I felt the last creature in the film was perfect, strange, and all I could hope to see, I was rather disappointed in the other monsters. I’d like to have designed them myself or worked with a master artist like Jordu Schell to come up with some truly bizarre and insane critters for the earlier sections of that horror flick.

MRW

(This question came from onionvolcano. Silly admin that I am, I replied to him privately before forwarding the question to MW and, of course, Tumblr ate all record of the post. Stupid, stupid Tumblr. Thanks to Derek for graciously messaging the question to me again. ~MJ )

Top