I wanted to emphasize the grandeur and epic scale of the home of the Olympians, so I chose to place the vantage point at the base of the mountain looking up towards the peak. I knew I wanted Zeus in darkness at the top holding his lightning bolt, but in the color sketch the dark purple shadow makes it feel too ominous or melancholy, so I went with a warmer orange and dark red in the final painting. One artist who inspired me back in Art school is Hugh Ferriss, who did these incredible pencil drawings of monolithic skyscrapers with fading values of light to dark, which gives them these cool graphic contrasts, which I'm always trying to infuse in my works.
I wanted to emphasize the grandeur and epic scale of the home of the Olympians, so I chose to place the vantage point at the base of the mountain looking up towards the peak. I knew I wanted Zeus in darkness at the top holding his lightning bolt, but in the color sketch the dark purple shadow makes it feel too ominous or melancholy, so I went with a warmer orange and dark red in the final painting. One artist who inspired me back in Art school is Hugh Ferriss, who did these incredible pencil drawings of monolithic skyscrapers with fading values of light to dark, which gives them these cool graphic contrasts, which I'm always trying to infuse in my works.
