it is asking you to dance with both after all

It's midnight in my mind's eye, drowning out the daylight

So.

On the photos and the initial scan the colours are more pink and vibrant. That is due to my very yellow lamp that shifts every colour in every photo i take under it.

My only qualm about the whole process is that i started on 110gsm paper so i had to be very selective and careful how many layers of colour i can work with and how much i can actually soak the paper because 110 is very far from the recommended 200gsm for watercolours.

It worked out. But It had to be put under weights a couple of times to prevent excessive curling up at the edges but all in all, i would not recommend 110 paper watercolours.

It's not a terribly complicated thing, I had a semi detailed sketch with H pencils. The sky was pretty fast and straightforward watercolours. The black is Posca pen.

The red dripping down from the moon is made with a ballpoint pen because i like the red colour the most out of all the red stuff i have.

The white bits are a mix between Posca pens, gel pens, watercolours and guache.

Everything else is watercolours. For watercolours it is either Sai pens (not directly onto the paper, but on a palette using brushes to actually paint, or i have little watercolour "chips" on small A7 cards.

And this was the first time doing a test scan to see how much the colours get boosted by the scanner vs the final, colour corrected version:

So it is not exactly a complicated piece, there is just a lot going on and looks more detailed than it actually is, i guess.

After scanning i did very basic colour correction so it isn't as pink as the photos or the scanner makes it out to be, because as i mentioned the true colours are closer to the final version. The pink vibrancy is due to my very yellow lamp, my phone being an older, not exactly high end piece of machinery and my scanner is a cheap ass thing that is not true to colour.

Apologies in advance for the typos

This whole thing is disjointed but please understand that while drawing my brain is rarely in one place. This is the most coherent form i can make this whole thing into. As i draw my mind is wandering and flutters around like a drunk butterfly on a sunny day on a wildflower field or something. And i am definitely not eloquent enough to put it to words in a way that is both understandable and reads like a fully sane person wrote it. But here is an attempt anyway:

Those of you who followed me since the still unfinished small offerings series know, that most of my drawings start out based on one idea and then as they are progressing the details and meanings start to accumulate.

I rarely talked about any of them truly in depth because i do believe at the moment the drawing is out of my hand is becoming everything any anything the others see in it, regardless of what my ideas were originally. But every once in a while, it could be fun for someone to see how someone's brain can unravel during the process of drawing. I like to joke about the drawing deciding what goes into it after the first sketch is made, but it is kind of the case.

With this specific drawing, the whole starting point was the takemaybacktoarcadia eden vs arcadia prompt. I was thinking about how to incorporate both in a drawing. My brain very quickly latched onto the phonetic similarity between eden and arcadia -> eden in arcadia -> even in arcadia. And that was basically the starting point. What if Eden is still in Arcadia?

Even if i'm unsure what Eden or Arcadia represents for the actual lore, because all we basically do is guessing, maybe the two cannot or would not exist without the other? You know, present not being there without the past, future not being possible without the present and the past, stuff like that.. I promise i'm not going to go too deep with it, i'm not smart enough for that.

So the main question became how to put Eden inside Arcadia?

The base concept came accidentally coming across a photo of a crumbling wall with an arch on an empty field.

There are a lot of viaducts and all that in the Arcadia imagery and i also like the idea of the logo's middle being a gateway. Maybe a gateway between Eden and Arcadia?

I had a preliminary sketch where the arch was smaller and the idea was it to stamd contrast with arcadian architecture:

But i didn't feel like it was it. Not exactly. So i tried a few iterations on small pieces of post-it notes as small thumbnails, but i sadly did not keep any of that. I did it up until the point where the arch grew bigger and bigger, slowly taking up not just the focus but taking up a solid chunk of the frame.

As like a.. how should i put it. That constant thing that can make you yearn for things from your past, never letting go. Could be good could be bad, but many of us has some thing we just cannot let go either we want to or not. It is part of us. Something like that.

Anyway, what is probably not clear from the original sketch is that the first version was aiming to put the arch in contrast with some Arcadian architecture, taken over by foliage. You know, the gateway to Eden is still standing, despite Arcadia basically eating itself alive, as a slow maybe even beautiful but also natural way of self destruction? Nature taking it's course regardless.

But at the end i ended up ditching the arcadian architecture as a whole, except for the crumbling road. Crumbling towards the Eden gate. As in, like memories can fade more and more as the thing you try to remember is further away from your point of time. They are there, maybe there is still a vivid image in your mind, but the surroundings are hazy, or the road to that vivid image is almost lost if you will. New memories taking up the space and all that. Like foliage growing over and old crumbling road.

I knew i wanted to inside of the arch mostly black and that's where the "midnight in my minds eye, drowning out the daylight" line came to mind. Hot the arch slowly took up the whole thing pushing everything back.

This is where my usual tangent comes in with symbolism what "even in arcadia you walk besides me still" could be. It could be a lot of things. Could be the lore thing with Vessel and Sleep obviously, could be the meta thing, the fans still being there during the arcadia era, could be a wide metaphor of anything that follows you throughout your life, like depression, trauma, death, someone you love, a pet or a spouse, a book, a memory, anything. It is wholly up to the listener to interpret. It could mean different things on different days even. But this also something that was constantly in the back of my mind. Maybe not that eloquently but the idea was floating around in my brain slush regardless.

So that is the concept.

The technical bits are an other part.

My aim with the stone texture of the arch was to try to evoke something like the stone textures of caves that were weathered down by water at some point, but now are up on try land. As in the arch being what remains of a once underwater structure. Maybe even a temple.

I have this idea of what if Arcadia was once underwater and i just love that whole tangent again. You know TPWBYT being the low point, the tomb under water. And then clawing your way up, fighting your way through (TMBTE), into emerging to the shore coughing not sure if you actually reached to shore or you fought so hard that the thing that drowned you receded back. And now the land is flourishing and everything is beautiful but after a while it grows suffocating and the cycle begins anew just differently. [insert the burning Arcadia image with the snow falling]

Anyway, you probably get the idea that i do have a lot of thoughts, many have some flimsy connecting tissue between them but it is just a bunch of maybes and what ifs. I don't like to stuck to one narrative or just a narrow explanation. More like keeping it vague enough that it still could be on the lore lever or just a personal experience level.

The small bloody handprint is oriented in a way that i hoped indicates that it was left while coming through the gate from Eden into Arcadia. As a small reminder of the battles fought during the way.

The way the upper foliage is arranged has a very vague resemblance to the shape of the sleep token logo. At least it tries to evoke that without being too direct.

The tentacles are white despite that we seen the moon tentacles mostly black and dripping with goop. It's a very simple idea. Time has a tendency to repaint memories of even potentially bad memories in a different light and in some weird cases outright harmful things from our pasts could become enticing.

I don't necessarily see Sleep as an intentionally malicious or harmful being, i spoke about this a lot at some point, that i really enjoy the idea of the conflict coming from the dissonance between the human and the divine, without specific intent. Human want A, divine wants B, they might align but both sees a different paths and ways to achieve because they have a different understanding of how to get there. A deity might not consider consequences of something, what could completely turn upside down a human being's whole existence. Stuff like that.

Anyway so that's why the tentacles are white.

Vessel is standing in front of the gate but not right up there. Because you can observe you past but you cannot really reach or touch it. Merely contemplate.

I toyed with the idea of adding a sword by Vessel's feet, mayber even broken, but i felt like it would indicate that there was at least some mind that he was still up and arms about his past. I didn't wanted that. There are probably complicated feelings but i think there is also understanding. No need to try to fight something that technically isn't anymore, even if it affects you for the rest of your life. Acknowledgement over repudiation. Or something like that.

Vessel is intentionally placed towards the horizontal middle of the whole image because the flamingo in the arcadia art is usually in the middle.

So these are the more coherent thoughts i had with this piece while making it. There were smaller things, there always are but this is long enough as is and i'm pretty sure there isn't many who got to the end. So if you are still reading this, i am cherishing the time you took out of your day to spend it on this instead of something else. I hope life is being kind to you, or at least today is an easier day.

with love, Levynn