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!