This week I’m going to write about the “Dreams of Things” cover that is sitting on my easel. It’s sitting in front of a bunch of other works on paper most of which are faux comic book covers like DOT. This one is in front of because every week when I make my comic book haul videos I show off a piece of my art. This is the one I showed off during December 18, 2024’s video. I spoke a little bit about it there but now I’ll write about it.
First off this one strikes me as a little unusual because there is only one person in it. For these covers I usually have at least two people in the composition. Not always and they have changed over time but this single figure makes the piece seem lonelier than usual. The figure is also androgynous and I’m not sure if it’s a she or a he. I think it’s a he in my mind my then it can change on me. I think I’ll go with he for this writing though.
There is a lot of purple in this piece and it’s mostly a reddish purple. That plus the orange sky and brown ground give this cover a strange glow. It’s definitely not cool as it would be if there was more blue nor is it hot as it would be if there was more red but it’s somewhere near warm. I think the blues surrounding his blue eye also bring the color back from hot to warm. The blue of his eye is central to the piece and its visual importance calms things down.
The bit of green that’s part of his hair or headdress also brings the color out of the hot zone. It’s its own bit of color reality creating a middle ground of space. The foreground is the figure, the background the sky and pyramids, and the middle ground is just that bit of green. The green also has spots on it that gives it a texture all of its own further putting that part of the piece on its own plane.
I love pyramids and work them into a lot of these covers. First off triangles are one of the three basic shapes along with rectangles and circles so they are easily relatable and then there is the historical aspect. Lots of ancient peoples built pyramids but we know the Egyptian ones best. They go back in time a long way and still have a bit of mystery about them. So for both their shape and feeling of deep history I like drawing pyramids in the background of these dream-like covers.
There is a loneliness to this piece not only because there is only one figure but also because he is silenced. He has some sort of brown cloth over his mouth and therefore cannot speak to us. Why is that there? Who silenced him? What would he have to say to us if he could? He looks like he wants to tell us something. Maybe he knows the secrets of the pyramids behind him but now he can’t tell us because someone won’t let him. And who is that someone?
The only touch of red in this cover is the face marking that he has. It’s an arrow that’s on his cheekbone and the arrow is pointing at his covered mouth. What does this mean? Is it to emphasize the importance of his silence? Would his talking to us actually be a bad thing and the red arrow is warning us?
The gold stud on his nose makes me think someone cares about him. If him being gagged against his will was by someone who didn’t’ like him then I’d imagine they wouldn’t let him keep that gold jewelry.
The main thing I like about working in markers is that they are instant color. You draw on a piece of paper and the color is there and settled in an second. You don’t even have to wait for water to dry as you do with watercolor or acrylic paints. It’s fast and it’s direct. I find that a good way to work.
The drawback to working with markers is that they have no surface. With paint you can leave behind brushstrokes that have a physical property to them. Paint sits on top of a surface and you can build it up so it has literal thickness. A lot of painting is about using the surface to create brushstrokes and textures. With markers there is none of that. No matter how many times you go over an area with a marker the ink always soaks into the paper and leaves no texture behind.
The fact that there is no texture to marker ink means that I have to draw some textures. I find that gives a piece more visual interest. That’s why I used a scumbling technique on the face. Scumbling is when I dab the side of the marker brush onto the paper creating a different small shape with every dab. This gives his face some texture and makes his skin a little more interesting.
The brown fabric/rope/tape that is wrapped around his mouth also has its own texture. It also has some small ink lines in there. I hope the color and ink textures give that part a natural organic look. It’s not something magical that’s keeping him silent but something physical.
I mentioned before the shapes in the green but all of the hair and headdress have their own textures. The two tone purple has a darker color running the length of it suggesting hair and the blue has some small ink lines going across it suggesting some kind of head wrap. It matches the blue of the collar too.
The orange sky is full of textures clouds, the ground has darker colored lines running across it, and the pyramids have lines running across them too.
The final texture is in his shirt and those lines almost form a herringbone pattern. They run from the outside of the shirt to the center seam or zipper. This makes it look a little bit more like fabric to me.
Overall this cover poses a lot of questions for me about what exactly is going on. But that’s what I’m looking for in this and my other “Dreams of Things” covers. I like exploring the meaning of things. It’s what I do.