Last year I was approached by Patrick and Jeannie Wilshire, the masterminds behind the IX Art Show, about creating a large painting for Illuxcon’s 18th year. The event (which is only two weeks away now!) is the highlight of my year, and I’ve been itching to work on something bigger, so I was honored and happy to take the commission. We determined it would be 36″ x 48″.

 

The commission was open-ended, but a tree painting was suggested…which is great because I won’t be tiring of painting them any time soon! Usually I determine the canvas size by the subject matter, but for this one, size came first and I had to create a concept to fit.  Working backwards, I determined that the tree needed to be imposing, but should be surrounded by something rich in details that could be explored.

After some very rough sketches, I switch to digital to refine the idea. I’m reliant on procreate to be able to re-size, move, and shift elements until they’re right, and especially so that I can swap out multiple options. Since I cannot see it in my head, I have to try everything out on ‘paper’ to know what does and doesn’t work. For Transcendent, I found myself more lost than usual. I knew what I wanted it to feel like, but after each adjustment, I felt like I was going in circles instead of progressing toward a goal.

 

It just wasn’t having the impact I was going for, so I shook it up by changing the orientation of the canvas to see what would come of that. I didn’t want it to feel like a real place, with sunrises and sunsets and a sense of time passing, but instead a place ancient and outside time- so I rejected the clouds with the red sunlight quickly, and switched to a dark sky with unearthly light (on the clouds), like daytime photos from the moon landing. The clouds were too bright for the composition, so they were dimmed but lit from a higher angle to avoid the feeling of evening.

 

I usually refine things like the shape of the tree and specific features of the painting after I have a better idea of what the painting will look like. After settling on a tree shape that complimented the motion of the crown, I worked out the balance of structural elements in the ruins. The goal is for it to feel symmetrically-balanced, without actually being symmetrical…real symmetry is boring.

I’ve been trying to come back to building models, which is something I’ve gotten away from in the last few years. I knew I needed to check reality for the soft, diffuse light from the tree’s crown on the different planes of the ruins. A ring-light would have been perfect if I’d owned one, but instead I wound fairy lights and clamped them above the model.

In the past I kept to 24-30″ paintings, which felt large on the table easel I used up until the end of 2024. Now on this bigger canvas, I discovered that the process was much more enjoyable from beginning to end; everything came easier and the brushstrokes felt better.  After finishing Transcendent, I moved it out of the studio to keep it safe. In a modest studio and at an arm’s length away, 48″ feels enormous, but it looked tiny once it was moved into a larger room and against a big open wall. Not only am I determined to do more in the future, but I am working on another one now, to come to IX too!

Transcendent will be on display at IX Arts (aka Illuxcon) October 22-26th, along with ~200 other artists and their work! I hope to see you there!

Transcendent, 48″ x 36″, Acrylic on Panel