Holly King Contemplates All that He Has Lost

[radiantfracture]

It's been at least a year since I painted anything seriously, and more like two.

But artist Brett Manning (brettmannignart)
posts the Faebruary art challenge every February, and I like the prompts.

I am behind, of course, but that's kind of reassuring. At this rate I will have prompts for all of February. Here's prompt #1, Holly King.



* * * * *

The prompts seem kind of wintry this year.

[ETA: right, I was going to explain why it looks like that.]

I'm always a bit rusty when I approach these prompts because I paint very little when school is in session. I need a certain kind of expansiveness in my mind. Also, a certain kind of exhaustion helps. Maybe they go together.

Anyway, the first painting in a series can be a bit all over the place because of that. This is much less polished than I'd like, but I thought I should post it to get myself back in the habit.

In this case, I was looking at some stickers I had of Kandinsky's art and remembering how much I loved his playful visual language, and thinking it would be nice to make the king's portrait kind of break up into abstraction.

I can't really justify the combination of this style and fairy lore -- it's a strange soup, and not helped by my haphazard execution.

Oh well -- day one!

* * * * *

These days most Insta artists seem to have moved to Patreon, which makes sense for money and flexibility but renders them much harder to find.

2025 is probably the last year I will participate in the art challenge. I've always loved it, but it happens on Instagram, and even if I weren't trying to work out what to do about the ethical situation, the designers have rendered the platform useless for sharing art.

Cross-posted from radiantfracture on Instagram.

Comments

[sovay]

I can't really justify the combination of this style and fairy lore -- it's a strange soup, and not helped by my haphazard execution.

I like the results, however unjustifiable. He has a real face, which is a nice thing in an archetype, and the berries of the crown echoed in the harlequinade.

the designers have rendered the platform useless for sharing art.

Jeez. What happened? (I am not on Instagram unless I am looking at other people's art.)

[sonia]

Ooh, that’s fabulous.

[smokingboot]

He's beautiful.

I like that juxtaposition.

[sabotabby]

I love your paintings, and I love your nod to Kandinsky here.

[lokifan]

I can't really justify the combination of this style and fairy lore

I really like it!

[radiantfracture]

Thank you!

Jeez. What happened?

Ha. Just the usual processes of enshittification. (Has that been anybody's word of the year? It should be.)

Forcing everyone towards videos instead of still images because TikTok. Adding a microblogging level that nobody wanted to try to capture the X market. Clogging up the images feed with irrelevant videos and ads. Opaque algorithms. Basically not letting you do the thing with the site that was the thing that you liked about it to begin with.

I used to love just looking at everybody's drawing challenges. But good luck if I see two artists that I follow in a day.

Did it get them more users? I guess it must have.

Plus, of course they are a Meta site.

That's the one thing about Dreamwidth – I don't mind a little extra HTML, but you couldn't call this an image-sharing site.

[radiantfracture]

Thank you!

[radiantfracture]

Thank you so much!

[radiantfracture]

Thank you! Means a lot coming for a real art teacher. Harmonious with your discussion of Russian futurism, although this is a little bit more on the gathering sheaves of wheat side.

[radiantfracture]

Thank you! That's very cheering.

[sovay]

Thank you!

I really like your paintings. I also admire that you make time for them even when you don't have much of it.

Just the usual processes of enshittification. (Has that been anybody's word of the year? It should be.)

I think someone did pick it for 2024, but it has obviously not worn out its unwelcome.

Forcing everyone towards videos instead of still images because TikTok. Adding a microblogging level that nobody wanted to try to capture the X market. Clogging up the images feed with irrelevant videos and ads. Opaque algorithms. Basically not letting you do the thing with the site that was the thing that you liked about it to begin with.

Blech! I'm so sorry. All of that sounds offputting to dire.

That's the one thing about Dreamwidth – I don't mind a little extra HTML, but you couldn't call this an image-sharing site.

And if you put someone on your friendlist, you can read them in order!

[sovay]

Harmonious with your discussion of Russian futurism, although this is a little bit more on the gathering sheaves of wheat side.

"Lyonel Feininger Paints the Fae" just dropped into my head as a title, so I am afraid that I am now trying to make it your problem. (I can't paint!)

[edit] I know Feininger was not one of the Russian Futurists, but he's right next to El Lissitzky at the Busch-Reisinger Museum and he painted Avenue of Trees (1915) which at size looks like the viewer could become lost between its transparent planes of tree.

[radiantfracture]

Lyonel Feininger Paints the Fae

I'll see what I can do!