Preview: Surreal Desert Landscape Airship Painting

Work on this piece is finally winding down. I am hoping to have this one done, imaged and shipped off by December 21st if at all possible. I would *really* have liked to have had giclees of this one ready before holiday season came around, but it was just not going to work out that way.

I have a book cover illustration (for a favorite author) to wrap up by early January (which will be yet another addition to the airships series), and a holiday trip to visit family to squeeze in there as well - so I am working away until the late hours of the morning on this, in between all the shipping duties and other such things.

Anyway, here are the latest preview shots of the upcoming painting. Clicking on any of these will take you to my flickr account where you can view larger images.

sphynx and airship shown in panned out view.
Painting of baskets and ropes has begun.


closeup view of baskets on underbelly.


Closeup view of the gondola.
The lanterns within the archway are about
the size of the eye of a needle.


panned out view of the gondola

Work in Progress

This is a work in progress - oil on wood panel. You can see a closeup of the airship here: here

The airship within is done from an earlier engraving; I wanted to see how "the Sabiku" would look in something other than straight lineart, and I am glad I decided to do so. I have come to really like this piece.

It has taken me a while to do; An extended winter (and the resulting lack of ventilation), made me lean on the acrylics for quite a while, and I found that when I returned to oil panting I had developed a lot of habits and methods that were not oil-friendly.

Not that I am nearing the finish line, everything is finally coming together, I think I have at least some of my technique back.

If you have seen my art over the past year, you might say to yourself: "Wow - he really loves airships"...

Though I do love working in this strange fiction/science fiction/fantasy vein, and though the airships do make for a good mode by which to explore these worlds and a decent centerpiece - it was not my intention at first to do so many of them.

I often realized that my subject matter, styles, media and the like were all over the place: I might work digital one day, paints another, an engraving on another day, a sculpture, a wooden box, some brass trinket - one week would be horror pieces, another would be figurative art, another would be monsters, another devices - and my styles varied in more ways than media or subject matter.

This may sound interesting to some... but galleries however like unified themes when it comes to shows, and so do publishers.

Most anyone who saw a collection of my past work, had none of it been signed, would think it was a collection from at least twenty different artists... which I suppose, in some fashion or another I am... though I am not nearly as fragmented as I was several years ago.


And since I had a number of people writing me, wondering if I could do a commissioned painting of an airship in similar style to the one that started this all off, I decided, spur of the moment, that selling those commissions would be a good way to make it home for a family emergency - they all sold within an hour or two of putting them up, and I have been working on them ever since.

Having an anticipated collection and theme laid out for me is nice, because forces me to stay somewhat on target, but it also forces me to use my imagination and improvise in ways other than technique, media, style, theme, message...

It has been interesting - but I'll be glad when the last of these are done.

BTW - If you like this one as it is, I made 10 prints, because Beth likes this one as it is. There will only be 10 - I suppose that makes them very limited. The rest will be based on the finished piece. I don't want them around by the time the piece is finished, so I am also pricing these 10x10 signed metallic prints at $22 - and to add, their shipping is free with the purchase of any other item in our store.

You can grab one over on our Etsy Store.

A glimpse

This is a rather unique print, printed at 12x12 instead of 24x24 - If it hasn't sold, it is available here

It is the proof from the printers, one of four artist's prints. Two are this size, two are normal size.



It is also, were I to put preferred darkness and saturation on a percentage, at about 98% perfect - slightly lighter than I want the prints to be, but pretty much unnoticeably so.

These test prints are all a part of the process, and I am told that these slightly different from the others, being a part of my working process, are probably worth more to some people.

This is my first time stretching and mounting one of these prints on my own. I hand made the stretcher bars that hold it, though I could probably have picked up 12 inch stretcher bars for 79 cents a piece - it was late night, and I rather like making things by hand anyway when I can.



I am trying things like these, because right now, my markup is really low and I still feel guilty for not being able to make things more affordable for those who like my work.

So, I am trying new ways to cut costs: Stretching and mounting these through hobby lobby or someplace similar saves money (hence the price cuts over the past month). Not only did the printers charge me a good deal for the stretching and mounting, but the shipping gets really expensive when shipping a box that is 40-some inches by 20-some by 3.

Stretching them myself saves a little more still, which allowed me to reduce prices again this last week - and I went one further by offering unstretched prints on our etsy store for "The Rescue". That way people can purchase these for less, and - rather than paying $30+ for shipping, can pay $6 for shipping, and $24 at hobby lobby for stretching, or $8 to stretch it themselves.

If such proves to be popular, I will probably do the same for every giclee.

Hello

I am Myke Amend - strange fiction, horror, fantasy fine-art illustrator, and co-archivist for the Miskatonic Archive

This is my first blogger post - well, not really an actual post per se, but an introduction.

Soon, I will fill this thing with all sorts of Strange-fiction-related nonsense, but not today.

I do however have many, many such entries at MykeAmend.com and the Miskatonic Archive (links above), as well as a moderate collection of my artworks (example below). Please join me there in the mean time, and subscribe to this feed for what is to come.