Skip to main content

[break.]


17" x 11", watercolour, 1994


I am a HUGE fan of science fiction and, ever since I was a young child, looking at the conceptual art for and other visuals of the Star Wars and other sci-fi films, TV shows, and books really fires my imagination and has inspired (if not influenced) my artwork a great deal. So this week will be Sci-Fi Week and I'll post the very few "space" paintings I've done.

But the thing is, out of the hundreds of images I've made, there are very few that deal with or contain any science fiction elements. Even this one is a hybrid of 20th Century North American fashion mashed up with the Lars moisture farm homestead on Tatooine. I don't know why I combined this model (from a fashion magazine) with Luke Skywalker's home; back then Star Wars was only beginning its resurgence into the general public's face (and even with the "special editions" being released in cinemas, there was still only "Star Wars," "Empire," and "Jedi") and it still felt like it was a sort of underground thing to do --and I felt I was being cheeky, not geeky.

Also, I don't know where that title, including the weird use of square brackets, means or came from. "Taking a break on Tatooine," I guess...maybe...

The "sand" texture in the foreground was made using the age-old technique of spraying the paint by running my thumbnail along the bristles of a toothbrush dipped in paint. I usually make a rough mask of the areas I don't want affected by tracing that shape on regular paper, cutting it out, and weighing it down with whatever fits (erasers, scissors, pens, etc.).

Like most paintings, this one is tricky to photograph and looks better in person.


Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Axel Foley's Chevy Nova (1/25 scale model)

Multiple tributes, here. I remember first seeing  Beverly Hills Cop  on video at my friend Chris K's house, 'cause his family had a VCR and we'd watch tons of movies (and record music videos) together. The summer of 1984 was a special time for us (having created a strong bond in school since Grade 6 a few years before), going on biking adventures around the 'burbs and into the city, etc., and home video played an important role from then until I moved to the opposite end of Scarborough just before we started high school. We liked the movie a lot, both of us fans of Eddie Murphy from his  Saturday Night Live  days. I don't think I'd seen the movie since then (it would have been 1985, probably summer, since the movie came out in late 1984) and I became curious to see if it still held up. It did. It does. I found Murphy as charming as ever and the comedy (and even the action) holds up very well and its very re-watchable and very entertaining.  Beverly Hi...
7 comments
Read more

U.S.S. Enterprise, NCC-1701-D (1/1400 scale model)

Seven decades after Kirk. I'd been hooked on Star Trek since I was a wee lad in the 1970s, watching reruns of the original series from the '60s, and I enjoyed the movies that came out afterward. When a new series was announced to debut in 1987, I was excited and interested, even though I felt the subtitle "The Next Generation" was cheesy. Nearly 30 years later, I've definitely gotten used to it (but "TNG" is easier to say and type), but I still find it kinda bland. Anyway, the show had fresh new technology and a spanking new design for its main ship, the U.S.S. Enterprise , NCC-1701-D, now the flagship of the Federation. Andrew Probert 's design took some getting used to for me; it had the same basic elements of the original Enterprise  (saucer, neck, cylinder, and two cylindrical engines on pylons), but the shapes and volumes were distributed differently, weirdly. Everything looked squished and soft. The organic look of this new ship had me ...
4 comments
Read more

U.S.S. Enterprise, Refit Restoration, Part 1

"All I ask is a tall ship And a star to steer her by" – John Masefield The original U.S.S. Enterprise , NCC-1701, designed by Matt Jeffries, first flew across TV screens in 1966 and was redesigned (chiefly by Jeffries, Mike Minor, and Andrew Probert) for Star Trek: The Motion Picture in 1979 (explained in the movie as having undergone a refit). I like the original design for its simplicity and elegance, but the refit really does it for me with its swept-back warp pylons and overall updated-yet-still-futuristic detailing. It's no wonder I picked this ship for my very first ever model. Check out this gorgeous scene of Scotty giving Admiral Kirk a tour 'round the outside of the Big E  in TMP (with beautiful music by Jerry Goldsmith). Which one did I build? The Star Trek V AMT/ERTL kit was issued in 1989, but I built it in the winter of 1991 (I remember there was snow on the ground in downtown Toronto, so it may have been early 1992, which means it ...
Post a Comment
Read more