The Worms Take Over

Here, I am showing an abstract painting based on a short story that I wrote recently. The subject of the story was a group of homeless people living in a junkyard, and they had the ability to eat garbage and digest it. On one passage, one of the children has a nightmare that worms have eaten everything on the planet, and people that remain are primitive and fight for their lives against the worms. In the painting, three people with weapons find shelter under a tree while hundreds of worms crawl past in the moonlight. Incidentally, I wrote a similar story under the title 'the worms take over the world' when I was in gradeschool, I may still have a copy around, it was even illustrated.

Techniques in this painting include latex-masking fluid for the stars, tree branches, and the worms (see discussion for Cosmetic Makeup). The dark colours are a combination of ultramarine blue (dark blue) and burnt sienna (brown), as well as windsor yellow. The nearly black parts are based on alzarian crimson (dark red) and virdian (dark green). The dark highlights are applied last over top of the lighter tones. I placed the shadows on the people and worms to make the moonlight really pop out at you. The pale blue glow was applied last with thin layer of transparent blue paint.

The Worms Take Over, 5 x 8" cold press, 2008 (No. 1726)