Sunday, November 23, 2008

Here's my contribution to a fund-raiser for a local non-profit art institute. I was given a 12"x12" panel of 1/2-inch plywood and assigned to do whatever I wanted. First off, I made my job easier by designing a very big frame, leaving me with only about 5"x5" of space to fill. As to subject matter, I've been spending 10-11 hours per day looking through a microscope at these things, so when I sat down with a pencil to start sketching ideas, this is what came out. The technique employed in the painting is a slightly abbreviated version of the 7-layer oil-painting system used by some of the old Dutch and Flemish masters (Rembrandt and his ilk), which was taught to me by Russian painter Alexei Antonov. More than ten years ago now I spent about 60 hours (spread out over a span of 18 months) learning from him. This is the first time I've painted anything since. It was great fun, and barring any calamatous increase in work demands, I intend to continue. For a description of the cell types portrayed here, you can check out the album on my facebook page (I'm listed as Micaiah Evans).