YSVYRI

Hey everyone, I hope you’re all well! I just wanted to let you know that fans of my work support me over on Patreon where every month I release narrated videos, process notes, step-by-steps, early access to art and sketches, layered PSDs, brushes and I do Livestreams with my super talented art buddies where we talk business, art and generally hang out in Patreon-exclusive streams with you guys! 

I’d love for you to come and join my little community and it’s the best way to support your favourite work during this time :)

“Endearment” 

“Spring in the Underworld” -  I was playing around with the ideas of the softness and darkness contrast in my work and I realised that there was no better place to explore this than the myth of Persephone and Hades, the former of which particularly inhabits both qualities. ⁠

I sketched my thumbnail before reading up on the mythology proper and I was rather dismayed – and pleased – to find my interpretation turned it slightly on its head. I didn’t want to portray the abduction or Persephone sitting in Hades' lap. I wanted to show her worshipped in his own kingdom. Him falling on his knees before her as she tears into the pomegranates greedily, sitting upon her throne of gnarled dead trees, herself a contrast of life in a desolate place. ⁠ Patreon members will get a process video and look behind the scenes!

"Poppy Mouth" - Finding peace with past things.

"Ville Valo" - painted for HIM's Bang and Whimper 2017 tour.

My Patreon is now up and running! Become a member to earn rewards, see process videos, get awesome discounts on huge statement prints and ensure I can deliver more artwork in the future. 

“Meinir”

Photoshop CC

Done for the Month of Fear challenge, “Hollow”.

This painting was inspired by a Welsh legend that my dad told me. He is very sick at the moment, so I want to dedicate this to him.

The story is of Rhys and Meinir, childhood sweethearts from the village of Nant who were due to get married. They invited all their friends and family who brought gifts for the couple, one brought a piece of cloth, another bringing some yeast flour, everyone bringing useful things. All the guests and family were looking forward to the joyful occasion on the following day.

In this tiny village the people kept up the tradition of the "Wedding Quest", this meant the bride would run and hide on the morning of her wedding and await to be found.

When the big day arrived, everybody gathered in Clynnog Church, except for Meinir who headed for the hills.

Playing their part, Rhys’ friends searched high and low for Meinir, but to no avail. On discovering his bride was missing, Rhys returned to the Nant and frantically searched for Meinir’s hiding place.

Fraught with worry, Rhys spent months searching for his sweetheart, and slowly lost his mind.

Then one stormy night, while out wandering the heath, Rhys took shelter beneath his favourite oak tree. As he cowered beneath the tree, a bolt of lightning struck the trunk, splitting it in half.

To Rhys’ disbelief, the splintered tree revealed a skeleton wearing a wedding dress. Overcome by emotion, poor Rhys collapsed and died beside his beloved bride.

“They Blink and Reality Shivers”

Done for the Month of Fear challenge, “Shiver”.

The saints cannot distinguish between being with other people and being alone: another good reason for becoming one.

They live in trees and eat air. Staring past or through us, they see things which we would call not there. We, on the contrary, see them.

They smell of old fur coats stored for a long time in the attic. When they move they ripple. Two of them passed here yesterday, filled and vacated and filled by the wind, like drained pillows blowing across a derelict lot, their twisted and scorched feet not touching the ground, their feathers catching in thistles. What they touched emptied of colour.

Whether they are dead or not is a moot point. Shreds of they litter history, a hand here, a bone there: is it suffering or goodness that makes them holy, or can anyone tell the difference?

Though they pray, they do not pray for us. Prayers peel off them like burned skin healing. Once they tried to save something, others or their own souls. Now they seem to have no use, like the colours on blind fish. Nevertheless, they are sacred.

They drift through the atmosphere, their blue eyes sucked dry by the ordeal of seeing, exuding gaps in the landscape as water exudes mist. They blink and reality shivers.