30″ X 40″
by Steven McCabe
Finished this last summer and spent the last two days ‘touching it up.’ More like completely reworking it. It’s part of a ‘blue-ish’ series called Welcome to The Ice Age.
I needed to do something tactile after an overwhelming slew of ‘conceptual’ stuff generated piles of paper (& text) over a month or more. And then the GIF experiments.
What’s strange about Photoshop is how it reveals something when you manipulate the image. Now I see a Druidic figure in the upper right observing the central image in the painting.
It seems he was there all along. And horned no less. I didn’t notice. Cernunnos? Celtic shaman?
*
*
*
poemimage 
Breathtaking
Thank you Elana. Nice to hear.
Wow! These are beautiful, Steven! Fascinating to reflect on. I see the Druid. And a pulpit in the first one. Glad to see you painting again
Thank you Jeanie. I’m glad the ‘blue-ism’ works for you. I’ll look for that pulpit! As for painting I did ten or these ‘blue’ paintings from smallish to biggish in the later part of summer. Really got into it. I look forward to your virtual book launch for The Soul’s Twins. Congratulations on your new book! I’m sure it is going to be fascinating and insightful! https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0764360604/
Wow 😯 Intricate and cosmic, slightly ominous—
Hi Elana, Cosmic and slightly ominous is an intriguing combination. I like that! 🙂 Not sure I’ve heard those put together before! Thank you again for your visit and thoughts.
‘Welcome to the Ice Age’ is a really arresting piece. The center third of the artwork really invokes the sensation that I’m face to face with the sarcophagus of an adept of a lost mystery cult. The chaos of designs and arrangements of shapes interlink and transition and disappear – the edifice of an enigma. Really impressive creativity!
Hi Tiege, Thank you. Your comments have opened the work up to me, and made connections, in a fuller way. I might have had a ‘feeling’ but your descriptions cast that feeling in a brighter light. Recently while hopscotching through a book on the history of Celtic Europe, because of how the book was written, I felt a solidity come out of the mist. And that solidity telescoped down to the idea of artifacts too. I think this ‘feeling’ was expressed in the painting. Many thanks again for these insights and I look forward to visiting your blog again soon. https://theburntthumb.wordpress.com
Beautiful! The touchups are amazing. It’s like it has new layers now.
Thank you Marc. I appreciated your thoughts the other night via our artists Zoom meeting with Charles also. I hadn’t thought of new layers but think it must be – both ‘under’ and ‘over,’ In paint and conceptual. Thank you Marc.
Gorgeous! Cerunnos rules:)! xxx