Chimæra
+O+ CHIMÆRA drawing finished. In some ways, CHIMÆRA is a tribute to Through the Looking Glass, old hardboard copies of which I read as a child - in another it is a statement about the deceitful occult ego and the limits of conscious human control in the face of far greater forces. Image to come. This card required some serious efforts to complete. Working to encapsulate Light into an image is very difficult. Its behaviour affects every part of an image - particularly the texture, sheen and shadows of any given surface it hits. Glass is difficult enough, but a mirror represents problems of its own - since if it not reflecting anything its surface is awkward to define. Part of this image contains a mirror laying flat in the foreground in which is imprisoned the reflection of aforementioned Chimaera but without the physical chimaera present above - a sort of negative descent into the other side of the paper. When you start adding light - working to understand it by looking at lamps, fire, glows etc. and the way certain shapes cast certain stretched shadows or leave glossy sheen on other objects you enter a new world where every other object in the picture is affected differently by any light sources employed and it requires constant vigilance to ensure the principles remain constant so that the illusion isn't broken. I imagine that any one of these skills of depicting textures, proportion, light, warp and so on require years and years of practice each - but I don't have time to commit that kind of effort. Yet Light is an important way to make an image stand out from the page and inject depth into an otherwise flat scape. Tendril is requiring me to learn some difficult concepts each time I start a card which cannot help but slow progression. Card #13 is now finished. Now beginning SYNCHRONICITY. +O+
