Tomb #1: The Space

So I have my idea.  I have my money and my materials.  What now?

The first thing to do is figure out who my characters are, who the tombs are about.  I’ll talk more about creating characters later; for now I’d like to jump right into the first Tomb.

That’s the attitude I had when I began.  While I was still figuring out the content of the tombs, I was hankering to get going on the final piece.  A lot of experienced artists would say that this is a mistake, but I can get ideas flowing when I’m actually producing, not just staring at a sketchbook all day.

So I had to figure out what the tomb itself looked like – how objects would be interacting with the space.  I had a long, odd size to work with (80” x 30”) so I had to really figure out the arrangement of the space itself.

An uncut door

Here are some sketches of ideas, with a disclaimer: I am not an accomplished sketcher.  Most of my artist friends have stacks of sketchbooks filled with beautiful images.  Mine are paltry doodles that act more as a placeholders for my original idea.

One of the books that I will be consistently referencing is James Gurney’s Imaginative Realism. It’s a step by step approach on how to convincingly paint something that might not exist in reality.  (Check out his blog. It’s useful for artists and illustrators, but he also frequently posts about the intersection of art, history and science.)

One thing Gurney talks about is the creation and use of maquettes – small models to use for reference.  Getting the right reference is important – A final painting will always look more convincing when you use actual reference, rather than from just what you think you see in your mind’s eye.

I started off by making a simple maquette of the tomb and other rocks using stryofoam and acrylic paint.  I made sure that the dimensions were the same ratio as what the final painting would be.

Then I did a photo shoot, taking as many pictures as I could, in as many arrangements as possible.  I even cut out a portion of the tomb to stick a light into in some of the photos.

This was not leading me where I wanted to go.  I decided to scrap the styrofoam tomb altogether and start again (although I may use it in the future). It’s a good rule to live by – but sometimes a difficult one – that if at any step of the way, something is not working out the way you want, don’t settle with it. Make it right.  This integrity will show in the end result. I know from experience.

I decided that a multi-chambered space would work best.  As inspiration, I borrowed a picture my sister-in-law took on a recent European trip.  

It’s a section of the Tomb of the Kings on Cyprus.  This 4 chambered tomb was what I was looking for, so I started sketching possible arrangements:

I then went out and bought several pounds of modeling clay. Frustrated with the styrofoam earlier, I figured the clay could give me more control.  I roughed out the chambers I was thinking and did another photo shoot. 

Note the clay stuff inside one of the chambers.  This was just to give me an idea about how light would affect the subject matter.

This shoot was more successful. I ended up compositing several photos together to get exactly what I was looking for with each chamber, while keeping consistent with overall lighting.

Composite photo

A last step in this conceptual process is to complete a larger charcoal drawing using my sources, called a comprehensive drawing.  I don't copy it exactly; I use the lighting in my photos, as well as other references (more on found references in a later post), to draw a tomb made of stone.  Again, the stuff inside is just a place holder.

Comprehensive drawing

This is just one approach out of hundreds to flesh out an idea.  In my next post, I'll talk about transferring the chambers to the final surface.