Dahlia

Thoughts

Similarly to how I have started other pieces, I found a reference pose with two figures mirroring each other and really like the idea of showing some sort of duality. I added the clothes on the second figure and had this image of worms writhing over the other one like she is made of worms. This idea continued with the concept that one girl imagines or sees herself as being this writhing and crawling mass. Immediately I thought of the Linkin Park song, Crawling - "Crawling in my sin, these wounds, they will not heal, fear is how I fall, confusing what is real." I wanted flowers in the background, I'm not certain why as I haven't used this in any other pieces. I wanted the flowers to have purpose as well as aesthetic, so I was looking for a flower with a long stem and meaning. I found Dahlias - they can stand for sorrow or long-term commitment. It seemed to me like the subject of the painting was sad with her worm-self, but they were joined forever.

Process

First, I sketched in the poses, then inked the worms in .03 fineliner, using my pencil guidelines and finished this stage off by going over the outlines of the figures in .3 fineliner. I coloured with spectrum noir alcohol markers. For the background, I drew in my flowers and inked their outline and then coloured the flowers in a solid grey and the background very dark grey with alcohol markers. This wasn't black enough, so I started putting charcoal over the top and added softness as well as detail to the flowers with the charcoal.