Outside the City of Harennon, Sitting on a Water Canopy

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In considering ideas for new work to add to this series, it dawned on me that I hadn’t really made any paintings that focus specifically on what emotions the humans in this story may be feeling in this new situation that they’re in, particularly early on in the story. In addition, I’d also had a friend mention to me that it would be interesting to see one of these humans possibly longing for their old world and for how things used to be there now that they’re in this alien world.

The best concept I could come up with in terms of how to represent this idea was to picture a figure sitting alone and looking off into the distance at something far away. Having a setting sun as the focus in the distance also seemed fitting in the sense that it represents a fleeting moment of something that this human would find familiar – even if maybe it isn’t exactly the same sun as the one that they’re used to seeing. I was hesitant to go with this idea because of how often sunsets are used in art – I didn’t want this painting to seem too cheesy or cliché. But in the end I think the idea was effective in accomplishing what I was hoping it would.

The “water canopy” that the girl in the painting is sitting on top of was initially imagined as a natural cave-like tunnel structure with holes/openings all throughout the top and sides. However, as the process went on, I came to think the structure as being more canopy-like given that many of the other ones that you can see in the painting didn’t end up being as long and tunnel-like as I’d originally envisioned.