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