Some time ago I was writing stories while adding music to enhance our emotions while reading. I would even write a short story that would be inspired by a song.
Lately I thought about trying the same thing but with painting. A lot of us play music while creating some form of art, but what if we paint according to the music that we are listening to?
So far I have only done a couple of these, and my experience has definitely left me wanting to do more, hoping that I can dive into this as a new form.
Today I will be sharing one with you where 3 of my favorite tracks from the same artist took me to a place of dark feelings.
Have you heard of 
I worked with him in a couple of chapters of my stories, adding his music to some of my chapters and he has even helped edit one of them. I am a fan of his music and I take the every chance that I can get to dive into the many levels, the depths of every sound, tapping into that energy and really feel it.
And that is exactly what I did yesterday.
I started with listening to the first track a couple time while staring at the canvas, getting my mind to picture what I am feeling from the sounds.
The first track is Ghost of Snare:
If you listen, you hear the eerie clicks, like knocking echoing in the distance. You can also hear that sound of something spooky.
Right away I pictured that time of day, where sunset has already started and you get that in between where things are hard to see clearly because night is settling in. That is why I painted a dark sunset like feel without that break of blue sky. The reason for that is that undertone sound that doesn't stop, it continues without change throughout the track. Sounds kind of what a wood instrument on a low note would sound like, sometimes getting stronger. Without change is that pause in time.
This track has already given me the base foundation that I needed to create the image. The pause in this track and the sounds old me it has to be a place in the forest. What is creepier than being in a forest with the sounds of a creature, not knowing where you are nor which way to go? So I started painting trees. Honestly I could have gone with creepier edgy trees but for reason, my hands made me do wispy, curvy.
Notice that stop in the track? That is the perfect moment when you spot the creature and your heart stops, your body freezes and everything just stops. That also gave me how I wanted to see my creature.
On to the 2nd track, Dark Times:
This one started playing while I was still painting the trees. It made me think of the fast movements. That beat being the heart. Man, these two tracks together make an entire story I wouldn't be able to paint! In my mind this is time of running away. Racing through the trees to get away and the beat of the heart fast, skipping a beat from the frantic fear, the slow down moment is when you stop to breathe, process, look for a way out and then back to running, the creature always behind you.
I started painting the creature with this track as well. I did struggle with it, having only a vague image in my head but knowing what I want. Kind of weird. So I just painted away, just using black and letting the brush do it's thing.
3rd track starts Broken Magic:
I was fully into the music, my mind still playing in the story but my hand was painting away. I was still painting in the creature giving its highlights and reworking the areas I didn't like.
This is where quality brushes come in handy and as you may have guessed it already, I did not have quality. I want the look of ripped flesh hanging off bone, long and scrawny, and the head was the most challenging. From the first Track (Ghost Of Snare) the idea for the was was to make is distorted. Making you kind of squint to make sense of what you are seeing. That's very tricky to do. Kind of like when watching 13 Ghosts and one of the ghosts, the head shakes super fast and you can't see what it is until it's right in front of you. But that you can kind of see a skull or something of the likes with big bright eyes, telling you that you are the locked on target. It spotted you and there is no way out.
I am not sure if I was successful in painting that. It kind of seems cheesy to me. If someone knows how to paint what I was trying to go for, please teach me :P
Playing the tracks over again as I touched it up, filling the little squares on the canvas that the brush missed in the trees, adding a few more branches etc. I cleaned my brushes and voila.
I still like the feel of it, wishing I could do better with it but hey, its a start, its progress. Let me know what you think! And head on over to the famous
Next time I will be sharing the one I created while listening to Marilyn Manson!
(Trust me, it's a better painting than this one _ )
