Starts 12am tonight folks, till my current stocks last :)

XO

source

Like that one. Though not actually that, as I had no camera then that could capture the effect, and the circle I saw was much wider, a bit thicker, and no clouds were visible. I tried to explain it later to people, who tried to tell me it was clouds, or light pollution or some manmade light show but I was like nuh-uh, this was otherworldly, it had to be. This had to be supernatural.

Though of course it was nothing of the sort. It was in fact what is known it is the rare phenomenon known as a paraselenic halo, and one of the many glorious quirks of atmospheric optics you could be lucky enough to see.

 On a long night drive back on the highway last week, I saw another interesting moon halo (this time the less rare 22degree halo) and it jogged the old memory. Researching atmospheric optics led me to identify other queer phenomena I've unknowingly observed over the years and had no name or explanation for. One such was a supernumery rainbow I'd seen one late Summer two years back, arcing over fields and mountains in Cork, Ireland.



source

 Pretty trippy, no? Again, not my actual photo, I never managed to capture it on my camera, but it did look a lot like that.

Here's an awesome site I am RSS too. It's 'Optics Picture Of The Day', where you can get a daily dose of photgraphed phenomena from all over the world. These come with scientific explanations too, all in one spot, and some diagrams for extra awesomeness. I loved seeing pictures of mirages and optical tricks I'd never even heard of before, like moon bows and green flash.


Noctilucent Clouds, source

So many myths, ghosts, miracles and religious attributes (like the halos of holy people, check out the Brocken Spectre) can be explained as simple natural physics. But its not hard to imagine why in an age where the laws of optics hadn't been sussed out,  phenomena as random, rare and queer as this was in turn feared and revered. Cultures as developed as those of ancient Egypt and South America attributed deities to things like rainbows and the sun, 'phenomena' which most school-age children in our days can explain away quickly. (or I sure as hell hope so).

It was not hard at all to tap into that early wonder, though, when I saw that paraselenic halo years ago, and have to shrug and resign to not understand the mystery.

'Some would think me blessed
to have an empty nest -
But all I do,
My Egg,
is think of you'

 
A visual to one of my 20-word-story/poems.

Print here.

Wanted to show one of my techniques here. I'd already concepted most of the picture composition-wise, and finished most of the face before turning to the figure's clothes. I knew she'd be wearing armour, so I researched specifically a Bronzino painting from the renaissance, then collaged the armour piece onto my painting. Using the skewing tools in photoshop, I play around with it a little till I achieve the perspective I need on the armour to make it look like it belongs in the plane of my painting.

I like to mox photo texture and old painting texture with drawn-in parts. Here you can see it in her blue tunic collar, it gets blocked in first then drawn and refined. I do this to other parts of her outfit too.

I block out areas of the fortress first in plain yellow, then snip photo texture pieces - abstract parts like close up photos of concrete walls or bark or roads or cracks on surfaces are my very favourites to work with. It gives a good ganrled-up background for me to layer more textures. I put these in a semi-transparent layer, copying and pasting them side by side like building blocks till the yellow building area is covered.

I use shots of stone from old building photos to fake up a wall effect. This is one of my favourite parts of digital collage because the painting really starts to look surreal at this point. Again I use skewing tools inside photoshop to flatten, stretch and fake-up curves in wall texture that has none, in order to make it look like it belongs in my painting's world. I also shade and lighten to give the illusion of edges. I like my paintings to be universally brightly lit, kind of like early renaissance paintings where everything's in sharp focus and seemingly spot-lit. It was the effect I was particularly after in this piece, where my aim was to achieve that historic-painting-with-a-modern-vibration look.

More of the same brichwork, to follow architectural details.. it's a process of snipping, skewing, pasting and re-tinting bits, Dr.Frankenstein-styel.

 

I use this process on even larger architectural parts, like the windows that stud the fort or this glass window. I find a photo of a glass window from stock resources like sxc.hu which is one of my favourite haunts, and embed it into my picture. All the while I'm adding drawn-in detail to my painting to balance out the texture.

I draw in details and shapes, shading manually. The bright blue inside the star forge is one of my favourite colours. I add in a second window, and draw light-beams coming out from each.

And Sin é*! The finished image.

Hope that was fun and a little (but not too) de-mystifying.


As a treat I'll be offering a print of this work at a 30% special offer this week, here.



*It's like the irish phrase for 'voila', from what I gather...

In order to get kids to sit still enough for photographers to get a sharp image back in the year of the fruitbat where kids were as fidgety as ever but film exposure a slow process, mothers would 'disguise' themselves in-frame to hold their kids still... Some are plain funny, especially when the custom's been explained, but the images - perhaps its the sepia, or something else - are rather spine-chilling...

Source: Retronaut, click to see more