Darthune
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Year: 2011
Size: 16″ x 20″
Darthune was made using acrylic paint and a texturizing paint on canvas.
More About This Painting:
I’m wrote this story in 2016, the piece was created in 2011. I did my best to remember the details.
Darthune is an abstract painting that started off life as a very different painting. After about a year or so, I realized the original painting was terrible – interesting concept but poor execution. Rather than just chuck the canvas in the garbage, I did what a lot of painters throughout history have done: paint over it.
The branches you see are the remnants of the original painting. I think the original was called “Roses & Branches” or something painfully obvious like that. They are made using an additive for artist acrylics that contains tiny round glass beads. The idea is to mix the additive into an acrylic paint. I just painted them on directly because the beads come in a clear-drying medium.
When I painted over the original, I painted the original canvas black. I had read about a painting technique where you lay down a background color (black in this case). You let that dry and then paint over the top of it. I dripped gratuitous amounts of red, orange, and a bit of yellow on to the canvas. Then I brushed it over and over. Before the new layers started to dry, I took paper towels and wiped some of the new paint off, exposing the black underneath. I also scrapped the paint off with a narrow tool to add some added depth (scratch marks).
The name, Darthune (dar-THOO-nay), comes from a list of names I created for a video game. I toyed with making my own game at one point. I decided to start by creating characters, places, animals, etc. That’s as far as I got as I realized I’m terrible at storytelling. Rather than scrap the list of names, I now use them as titles for my artwork when I’m stuck for titles.