PARTY ANIMAL by Michael Whelan, week 6 in his gallery project LEFTOVERS & PALETTE GREMLINS.

This “Leftover” was gleaned from a palette set up for a morning oil painting exercise (a horror riff on a goofy photo of my friend Stephen R. Cox, depicting him as one of the “rad leps” from his Mutant Hunter series).

The palette still had on it some Manganese Blue, Alizarin Crimson, Raw Umber, and maybe a dab of white or Naples yellow. I took a scrap of canvas left over from a printing session for my surface.

As a bonus, included here is the Cox/Rad Lep picture. Er, not one of my prettiest pictures ;-)… and not very refined, being painted in oils in a hurry. It was based on a bizarre photo his daughter took—perfect for what I wanted—and yes, the Basil Gogos style approach is deliberate.

Source: michaelwhelan.com

Last bit of Halloween fun. A re-imagined portrait of author Stephen R. Cox by Michael Whelan.

The source material was an unused author photo that I’d worked up for a recent redesign of Steve’s website. Michael wasn’t content leaving it on the cutting room floor and transformed the author into a rad leper from the Mutant Hunter series.

Source: michaelwhelan.com

THE GHOUL WITH THE PEARL EARRING by Michael Whelan Oils - 20” x 16” This began life as a drawing in one of my sketchbooks while reading MUTANT HUNTER: THE SLICKS. I was trying to get the feel of one of the mutant characters in the book, but it fell...
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THE GHOUL WITH THE PEARL EARRING by Michael Whelan

Oils - 20” x 16”

This began life as a drawing in one of my sketchbooks while reading MUTANT HUNTER: THE SLICKS. I was trying to get the feel of one of the mutant characters in the book, but it fell short of the mark. I liked the thing’s grin enough to want to try to paint it, however, so I devoted a  little time one morning sketching the head out in oils. Later I came into my studio and noticed for the first time how similar the head position was to that of the girl in the famous painting by Vermeer…so I put some more time into it and brought it up to a full color rendering.

(via theartofmichaelwhelan)

Source: michaelwhelan.com

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