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Right now

May, 2023 — Bergen, Norway

A lot more digital painting this last month. It started with Campfire, but has since branched out into some personal pieces and several studies as well.

I've made some of them available as art prints.

A house on top of a grassy hill, against a partially overcast sky. Tall, thin trees jut out of the hillside. A low dusk sun gives the scene a slight warm feel.

I've also kept up the (much needed) weekly live figure drawing classes.

Several pencil sketches of female nude figures in various poses

One of the concept pieces I made for Campfire last month was selected to be part of the summer exhibition at the Oseana Art and Cultural Centre. The exhibition juxtaposes the old Norwegian masters¹ with contemporary art in the same thematic and stylistic vein — myth, fantasy and romanticism.

A framed print hangs on a gallery wall, alongside two ornately framed classical paintings

Seeing my work alongside work by artists like Gerhard Munthe provided an unreal experience - a sense of affirmation, along with the familiar humbling awe.

A closer look at the framed print. Two pale characters stand silhouetted against the edge of a dark, green and brown forest - a child and an adult, like geometric marble figures. The adult carries a sword on their back. They hold hands. The scene is in shadow but a single pool of light creates a bright green patch of grass between them and the forest. They seem caught in a liminal moment, on the precipice of something. Hesitant perhaps.

[↑] There are prints available of this one (and others).

At H&G we're still touring project Nenia around to publishers and other interested parties. At the same time we're keeping busy with contract work and small side projects. That'll probably be the way of it until our summer break (July) starts.

Speaking of breaks - I've been taking one from Project Zomboid. In its stead I've spent some time with Space Engineers (an old friend), designing and building a space station in the heart of a drifting asteroid — as you do.

I also pop back into Hitman regularly, to revisit levels for their environmental storytelling, architecture, atmosphere, and clockwork story logic. Recently that's been The Isle of Sgàil — a salt-blasted medieval stone castle perched on a rock somewhere in the North Atlantic Ocean, hosting the annual convention of a highly secretive society of ultra-wealthy doomsday preppers called the Ark Society. Love it.

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  1. Hans Gude, Adolph Tidemand, Theodor Kittelsen ++