The fifth installment in his 2019 LEFTOVERS & PALETTE GREMLINS gallery project.
Just a critter I saw in a blob of paint and brought into focus. No deep thought or meaning in my head, just a sort of doodle in paint.
Source: michaelwhelan.com
The fourth installment in his 2019 LEFTOVERS & PALETTE GREMLINS gallery project.
I originally sketched this in Raw Umber while trying to come up with a Tad Williams cover design. It was never used but I liked the arrangement.
Earlier this month I completed the image using some reds. A little late for Valentine’s Day?
Source: michaelwhelan.com
The third installment in his 2019 LEFTOVERS & PALETTE GREMLINS gallery project.
I keep making pronouncements like, “I’m through doing fantasy painting” or “No more horror paintings. I’m done with that.” Then after a little while, boom! I find myself sketching some ugly little troll or painting a vampire. I guess it’s time to admit that it’s just a part of me and beyond my will to control.
This started as a 3" x 3" doodle on my drawing table left by Jordu Schell. I don’t know if it really qualifies as a Palette Gremlin, but I started out using leftover Raw Umber oil paint to sketch it. Then I got a little crazy and added some color to liven it up.
Source: michaelwhelan.com
The first installment in his 2019 LEFTOVERS & PALETTE GREMLINS gallery project
The board used here was previously employed while mixing colors for the cover of Empire of Grass by Tad Williams. Some of the brush marks looked to me like a futuristic city, so that’s what it turned into. I suppose doing an SF image was a rebellion of sorts against so many fantasy commissions these past few years.
Source: michaelwhelan.com
The 11th installment in his 2018 LEFTOVERS & PALETTE GREMLINS gallery project.
Executed with leftover Raw Umber oil paint, this is a riff on a painting from some time ago called “Cristate” (included here). Both sprang from my fascination with the shapes made by Cristate cacti. I fancy trying a third that will be more along the lines of the original, which was larger and somewhat more ambitious. Perhaps the next time I have leftover paint and a surface to put it on.
Source: michaelwhelan.com
The tenth installment in his 2018 LEFTOVERS & PALETTE GREMLINS gallery project
Like most palette gremlins, this was just something I happened to “see” in the blobs of paint on the paper.
The night before, I was talking to Bob Mellilo (friend, helper, and huge Phish fan) about a riff he kept hearing in a Phish set. Auds and I agreed it was probably derived from an old 60s song titled “Pictures of Matchstick Men” but the riff also made me think of an instrumental piece by YES called “The Fish”. Maybe in some obscure way that influenced me.
Included are several shots of the palette and my take on what I saw there. #2 - The palette paper as I found it. #3 - Turned around because I thought I saw something fishy there. #4 - A few lines I drew in with a pencil. The top image, of course, is what I ended up with.
Source: michaelwhelan.com
The ninth installment in his 2018 LEFTOVERS & PALETTE GREMLINS gallery project.
This one grew out of a splatter of raw umber on a sheet of gray palette paper. I fiddled with it almost as an afterthought and liked where it was going enough that I took a photo before adding anything. Over the weekend I spent time bringing it into sharper focus.
Source: michaelwhelan.com
The eighth installment in his 2018 LEFTOVERS & PALETTE GREMLINS gallery project
I had a quantity of the pigment left on my palette while working on an HP Lovecraft painting in Payne’s Grey and white, so I fished a canvas scrap out of the wastebasket in our print room and sketched this scene. Painted mostly this past Spring then finished off yesterday.
Source: michaelwhelan.com
The seventh installment in his 2018 LEFTOVERS & PALETTE GREMLINS gallery project
When I came in for lunch a few days ago, I saw on a section of palette paper on my work table what looked like the face of one of the man-apes from the “Dawn of Man” sequence in 2001: A Space Odyssey. I couldn’t resist going in with black acrylic paint and embellishing to reflect what I was seeing in my mind.
This whole thing was sparked by Space Odyssey, a fascinating book by Michael Benson about the making of the film. I have to thank George Beahm for the gift. He knows the film is my all-time favorite and how much I would appreciate such a detailed examination of the film’s creation. I’ve read it three times now, and as you can see have made copious notes.
Source: michaelwhelan.com
Sixth in his 2018 LEFTOVERS & PALETTE GREMLINS gallery project
A small study for a larger planned painting that never happened.
I began working on this at the same time as the cover for Words of Radiance back in 2013. I felt it needed another element to seem “right” to me so I set it aside until last week when the final detail came to me. Once I added the lock on the second chain using leftover paint in a palette I needed to clean out, I finally considered the study complete.
Some paintings take a while to find their finishing flourishes.
Source: michaelwhelan.com
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