Supernatural Fiber Arts Project Diary: Contemplation

Oh, man, this one gave me fits. I’m still not fully satisfied with it.

I have a tendency to fall into a “Grand Plans” mindset where I’ve got all kinds of ideas that sound good on an intellectual level, but in reality just end up muddying things.

I knew I wanted to evoke energy, a sense of clashing and binding that contrasts sharply with the separate and contemplative nature of the original screen cap.

I did the usual bumbling about in photoshop. Initially, I was considering a green theme, given that I had blue, gold, and red themes already.

But, nothing “popped.”

I thought maybe black/white and then introducing color to specific parts to highlight them. I thought it might evoke being drained of color and vitality and the only energy and life being the connection between.

I dunno. Green against the black and white didn’t accomplish that, however.

At the same time I was casting about for inspiration for what exactly I’d be adding to the pic. I looked at nebulae, fire, and angel wings and finally ran into this pic:

Isn’t that great? As far as I can tell, it’s called “Source of human power – Angel" by allanwalkey.

So much energy in the line work. A couple things struck me about the use of color, too. One was the use of gradation of warm colors. I’ve been wanting to do something with halation for a while. See how the gradients of color set next to each other make them seem to glow?

There’s a reason why and it all has to do with how our brains process color and contrasts. See where the colors butt up against each other? Look for a faint brightness along the edge in the lighter color and a faint darkness along the edge in the darker color. That doesn’t really exist. In reality, each bar is a solid color. Our brain pumps up the volume on contrasts because edges are so important in being able to see how this thing we’re looking at is a whole object, set aside and different from the stuff around it.

So, I hoped that using a gradient of color like this would give it some energy.

And then I ran into this quote from wikipedia: Complementary colors are pairs of colors which, when combined, cancel each other out. … When placed next to each other, they create the strongest contrast for those particular two colors.

Which I thought was all kinds of appropriate for Sam and Dean’s relationship. When combined, cancel each other out, but when placed next to each other create strongest contrasts. That really fit with the theme of Ties that Bind. Bound together, with both the negative and positive connotations of that connection.

I ran some tests.

I struggled to get a focal point. I was noodling around on the internet, looking up meiosis and mitosis on the inspirational thought of growth and separation. I ran into Fluorescence Microscopy. OOOF!

I liked the sense of this cocoon around the action.

Here’s my first attempt at it.

meh. I didn’t much like the rays, either. There’s just too much going on. I was hoping to evoke the complexity of clashing and binding by where the rays come together in the middle, but it’s just a mess. No focal point. Bleh! Grand-Plan-itis.

I ended up cutting away the brown and replacing it with couching – so texture but not enough to draw the eye away from the middle.

Took out the lighter rays close to the guys. I loved them, but it drew the eye away from the middle. Replaced the middle with a more even "explosive” set of rays in the lighter range of colors.

So, this is the end product. It’s an improvement, buuuuut. Still lacking something. I may cut away the brown couching and replace it with a web of straight dark threads, browns at the bottom grading up to black on top to give it depth. Maybe it’ll highlight the sense cocooning and claustrophobia. We’ll see.