This looks like the last one in the "Arabian Night" series for a while. They were basically Orientalist nocturnes and despite the title of the series were not all set in Arabia! This is obviously The Sphinx in Gizeh, Egypt and have chosen a view of it near to when Western archeologists first started to dig it out of the sands as a nod to my inspiration source, the Western orientalist paintings of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. I originally envisaged this one to be kind of Atkinson Grimshaw in Egypt but once I had made a start on the sky I realised that it was going to go it's own way in the manner of how I have been painting moonlit skies recently so maybe I will save that idea for another painting one day.
I quite like how it is slightly off-centre and kind of sets up a slight tension in the design.... Based on a blue/green - red/orange colour complementary with the blue/greens kept pretty desaturated.
Oil on linen 22" x 16".
There is a step-by-step progress through this painting in previous posts on this blog.
No comments:
Post a Comment