Designed Rocket Doodles...

 "Gossmere 'Gossamer' Base"

 (10x10", Oils on Linen, Framed)  Price: $600.00  SOLD

This is one of the designs from my teeny sketchbook that I doodled awhile back. It's the first time I've painted, let alone drawn such a spindly space station. It was kind of inspired by the spider-like air traffic control 'tower' at LAX airport, in shape. And since the design is light and airy compared to many of my other clunky space stations, this one fit the almost pristine delicacy of the concept of the whitish rings and planet cloudscape below it. Lots of nuance and golden highlights have been  lost in photography, but I'm rather proud of fulfilling my vision for this idea. Below, is the page from my sketchbook...fully designed in a 3.5 x 3.5" space. The entries that I draw between the covers of this little book are more complete and 'deliberate' ideas that come to mind and need a little more effort than the 'off the cuff' ones that are more like 'insta-rockets'. Besides, with drawing up designs before hand, I can just scan to canvas size, print out and draw them down, ready to begin adding paint. They also often require more than just one sitting to complete.

 

"Jagged Edges"

(6x7", Oils on Linen, Framed)  Price: $ 350.00  SOLD

 

 

I kind of like viewing space through 'broken windows' kind of debris. You may have noticed this. It provides the viewer with a narrative and possible story than just 'rocket flying through space' does. Yeah, I like painting those simple ideas, too. But, sometimes the urge to tell a bigger story takes over and I get to doodling in my teeny sketchbook again for a more finite design. The actual paint is another story. I'm never really fully invested in a colour scheme when I'm designing a rocket doodle...with the exception of, perhaps, "Gossmere 'Gossamer' Base" above which come to mind fully formed in paint as well as pencil. A couple of others where I am using a space photo from one of the NASA telescopes as a starting point may have a base colour-idea as well, but this doesn't happen often. The old pulp cover artists of the Golden Age and Silver Age of science fiction quite regularly used lurid colours when representing 'space' that defy the laws of physics and the universe when getting their ideas across. I'm more in line with their way of creating as it feeds fully into the 'what if' principle that is currently driving my science fiction/science fantasy space art and rocket doodles. "Jagged Edges" colour ideas were inspired by the top right hand corner of one of my previous paintings, "Moon Hopper". Nostalgic rust-coloured space with cool-tinted shadows was the basis for the premise going forward. I'm rather pleased with how it turned out. It brings 1950s space opera and pulp magazine covers to mind. Below is the design drawing from my little sketchbook.

 

"Lightship"

(6x6", Oils on Linen, Framed)  Price: $280.00  SOLD

"Lightship" is something of a 'ringer'...somewhere between an 'off the cuff' rocket doodle and a 'designed' one. I had a square frame that I wanted to paint something for and an idea started to form. I ended up using a 'saturn-like-planet' sketch from a previous painting and a previous style of space station I've painted to inspire the drawing of a new one. Below is the drawing/doodle of said space station/lightship on a page of its own in my teeny thumbnail sketchbook. Yeah, I know a lot of my space station designs reflect similar elements, but that's just my creative quirks at play. I like them to look organically grown technology of 'let's just add on a piece here' development over a long time frame...so bits stick out everywhere, appearing 'tacked on'. The final colour scheme of the painting wasn't quite what I was expecting it to be, but it was an adventure to paint.

Anyway, here ends the current crop of rocket doodles until I post up my annual CHRISTMAS SMALL WORKS SALE 2023 on Sunday 3rd December at 4pm. Come back and take a look. Meanwhile, thanks for stopping by.
Cheers, 

Marianne

Spur of the Moment Rocket Doodles...

 

"Moon Hopper"

(4x6", Oils on Linen, Framed)    Price: $ 150.00  SOLD

True Rocket Doodles in my creative world are the ones that come from a 'what shall I paint now?' mindset, usually after I've just completed whatever else I've been working on, large or small. And sometimes, inspiration strikes just right and I'll grab a canvas and start drawing elements on it until I get a working concept or story. These latest few paintings are just that: impromptu, off the cuff, spur of the moment tiny works inspired typically by 'colour combinations', shapes, a singular element from something I've just been working on, or even something amorphous from music I've been listening to or such. Sometimes, the magic is just there when you need it. 'Moon Hopper' was inspired by wanting to play with colour and shape, so I just kept adding elements, starting with the 'Saturn'-like planet as the anchor and finishing up with tiny rocket racing away from the space station. All of the random elements work in this tiny painting and I added and added them until it just felt 'balanced' to me. Then I started in with the paint. I had a lot of fun with this one, and the nostalgia style 'space' that I created in the top right hand corner was the basis for another painting, 'Jagged Edges' which I'll talk about in the next post. Meanwhile, here are some of the other paintings that I created for Illuxcon that were literally not designed, but were more of happy accidents...

"The Narrows"

(4x6", Oils on Linen, Framed)  Price: $ 100.00 SOLD

'The Narrows' was inspired by a colour scheme I had in mind and a pretty pale rose gold frame I had lying around my studio. A wavy line, draw a rocket on a favourable angle, put in a few moons using a small circle gauge template and off I went. There is something just so soothing noodling wet paint into pleasing shapes and depths.

 "The In-Between"

(4x4", Oils on Linen, Framed)  Price: $90.00  SOLD

I had a small but bulky mottled brown frame hanging around my studio table for quite some time. I don't remember when I purchased it or where, but it spoke to me on  some level, and I am a sucker for giving odd sized frames a good home and use. Right then, I thought the colour of it would lend itself well to a small painting of Mars or similarly toned painting idea. So, I used a roll of artists tape to make the big planet anchor and and drew in a rough asteroid/moon shape in the lower right. I had fun with doodling this domed station for a few minutes, then it was ready for painting. Everything was roughly noodled with the paint with only loose attention to details of real world, or real space objects. I've painted Mars a few times now and didn't want to lose flow in the creativity process by delineating every little crater and canyon on the red planet. The space station was formed by a lot of tiny dashes and implied detail. After the painting was finished, I held up the frame to it and decided that the frame didn't fully compliment the image itself. It kind of needed to be darker. I shrugged, scrunched up some paper towel and proceeded to dab black paint from my palette onto the frame to darken the inner edges of it, not fully covering the original pretty mottled brown. It worked!!! The darker inner edges made the tiny painting pop. So, after the frame dried, I sprayed it with Kamar Varnish a couple of times and let it sit and dry some more. The frame and painting looked fully cohesive when finally mated. Sometimes, it just pays to play around. Ahem...

Anyway, thanks for stopping by. I'll be posting a few more of my 'Designed' Rocket Doodles next time, so stay tuned.
Cheers,

Marianne

Vintage Inspiration

"The Mote in God's Eye"

(9x12", Oils on Linen Panel, Framed)   Price: $575.00  SOLD

 

I was feeling a bit burned out when we went to a friend's home and orchard up north for the annual apple picking back in September. Rather than doing my usual enthusiastic picking of said apples and making cider with my friends, I got myself a cup of the hard cider on tap from the cooler spigot and wandered around the extended house and looked at all of the vintage artworks and books. Vintage pulp art heaven. Little niggles of ideas nibbled at my mind whilst I drooled over inspiring works of wonder. Science fiction, fantasy, western, mystery, thriller, fun and whimsical art that has mostly graced the covers or interiors of novels and books and magazines for at least the last hundred years. I'm not an expert and able to tell the names and techniques of the many artists, but it certainly was inspiring. The huge red sun in a Paul Lehr painting stayed with me and I sat down in the living room with my teeny sketchbook and noodled out a few drawings, one of which became the basis for my new painting "The Mote in God's Eye". I have toyed with this premise in the past and never got any further than ideas in mind and a single aborted attempt at an over sized rocket doodle that I never finished some years back. I think the colour scheme I had on it and a very nebulous idea was all wrong. This time it all fell into place. I just needed the right inspiration and a warmer, if overly dramatic colour scheme. LOL That big red sun got to me. The nostalgia which is prevalent in my rocket doodles comes from my youth in the 1960s and my Dad's love of all the pulps, science fiction and thrillers, particularly. I get that from him. But nowadays, I bring my nostalgia of the old 'what if' days that knew virtually no limits in imagination to life in my tiny rocket microcosms. Small visions of stories or parts of stories that make the viewer wonder what is happening. Yeah, the simple visions of my ideas have gotten more complicated over the years, but there is always a story to tell...even if I'm not always quite sure what it is until I've finished painting it. What do you think?

This is the design I doodled that day...

Thanks for stopping by, and come back soon for more rocket doodles and such.
Cheers,
Marianne