Meticulouslymindlessart - Meticulously Mindless Art - Tumblr Blog

Happy dictator-perforation-day to those who celebrate 🗡️🗡️🗡️

I pulled an all-nighter to get this out on time, because I consistently underestimate the time it takes me to paint, but I am quite pleased with the finished image

As a sidenote, whilst I did skim over the account of the assassination given by Suetonius in his biography of Caesar, I didn’t pay all to much attention to historical accuracy, deciding to prioritise composition instead (Not that my usual artwork is particularly historically accurate, since whilst I do make an effort at research before starting a piece, I still am just some 19-year-old with barely any qualifications in  the relevant fields lol)

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close-ups:

My current main wip is frustrating me somewhat, so I painted this quick, one-layer doodle as a distraction and I might as well post it

Orestes and Erinys

A bit over a month ago I had to give a short presentation on Aischylos‘ Oresteia as part of my coursework and reading it gave me the idea for this piece.

Specifically, it is referencing lines 1057-1058 of the Libation Bearers, where, for the first time, Orestes is seeing the Furies.

(The text does explicitly describe blood dripping from the Furies’ eyes, but when I noticed this, the idea of a blood-covered face had already developed, and I chose to keep it. Also I didn’t have the time or patience to paint more than two figures, so I suppose you can imagine the rest of the Furies somewhere off-screen or something)

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(Close-ups)

I read that we’re about to get a movie in the coming year, so I decided to rewatch the series, which in turn led to a new bout of fan-brainrot.

Anyway, here’s some fanart of everybody’s favourite Medicine Seller. I also took the opportunity to mess around with the colour choices, as I have recently found my art lacking in that regard. I am not entirely happy with the result, but it looks decent enough to post.

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St. Sebastian and St. Irene of Rome

The motif of Saint Sebastian perforated by arrows is in itself quite common, but I found far less depictions of the scene that followed, involving the widowed Saint Irene and her servant rescuing him from this martyrdom (only for him to be martyred again later lol), so I decided to try my hand at it.

Besides, I wanted to paint something with more anatomical detail, as I have been quite lacking behind in doing actual studies and involving it in an actual painting makes anatomy more interesting to me.

I feel it necessary to note that I myself am not religious, but growing up in a historically somewhat catholic area and having an interest in religions and mythologies must've imbued me with a certain interest in the imagery, I guess.

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All that remains

Close ups:

Blessed King of Longing

I tried to put a bit more thought into the colours and I must say that I am quite happy with the result.

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Daphne, the Nymph, amidst her (infamous) transformation into a laurel tree 🌿

(Close Ups:)

“Ephemeral Shell”

This painting (especially regarding the flower imagery) is vaguely inspired by the so-called “Schnitterlied”, an originally anonymous (tho later published, revised and quoted by several authors in the following centuries) German poem/song, dealing with fleeting nature of the material compared to the eternal nature of the soul (as appears to be quite common in texts of this era). I came across it when revising for my school finals (which I am still somewhat in the middle of, hence also the recent lack of posts, sorry).

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„Oedipus coming upon the dead body of his mother Iocaste” After first watching the 1957 production by Tyrone Guthrie and subsequently reading a translation of the play as written by Sophocles, I felt like painting something related to this story and the scene of Oedipus seeing his mothers corpse (although not outright shown in the actual play, but relayed by a messenger) struck me as particularly affecting.

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+ Bonus Snake:

Modern Prometheus

Happy (somewhat belated) Halloween!

I originally planned something more elaborate, but in the end I had to settle for this rather quick doodle of Frankenstein, as I am currently a bit short on time. (Hence also the void background and lack of details in this painting)

(Alternative version & close-ups)

☀️Far-Shooting Apollo☀️

The idea for this arose a while (and by while I mean about 4 months) ago, when we were reading the Exposition of the Iliad in class.

I wanted to depict the scene in Book one where Apollo sends a plague to afflict the Acheans by shooting first the mules and dogs, then the men, after Agamemnon denied the release of the priest-daughter Chryseis to her father.

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(Close-Up Time!)

🌾 Demeter and Persephone 🌾

I guess springtime got me thinking about the two of them, which is kind of ironic since this painting is set just before Persephone's departure into the underworld.

I also thought the mother-daughter relationship and Demeter's grief at her daughter's marriage/ metaphorical "death" (as described in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter) would be interesting to explore artistically.

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Just felt like painting a girl in a vyshyvanka (a type of embroidered shirt).

Hello,

It's been a while since I last posted something on here. As someone with close family in Ukraine (although luckily all of them are currently safe) the last month has been rather emotionally taxing on me. Because of that I am afraid that my posts might continue to be quite sparse in the coming weeks. I hope you understand and have a nice day/night 💙💛

🕯️🕯️

It may not be Christmas anymore, but I recently finished re-reading Charles Dickens' 'A Christmas Carol' and so I present to you this illustration of the Ghost of Christmas Past. My interpretation of the spirit is not entirely faithful to the description written in the book, as some elements were either impossible to really depict artistically or I just couldn't be bothered to paint them.

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Achilles is quite annoying until that big character development in book 24 of the Iliad, but that kinda makes him interesting to paint.

This originally started out as a lighting study, hence the composition and colour scheme being a bit sparse. Also couldn't find that many depictions of male Mycenaean clothing, so most of what he's wearing is just guesswork.

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(Close-up time!)

I found the time to paint again. As said before, posts may be quite infrequent in the coming months, as school takes precedent over my hobbies and I might not be able to draw/paint as much. Still, I bring you this watercolour/ acrylic painting based on Hypnos, the Greek god/ personification of sleep.

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🌟The Magician🌟

(yes, we have apparently become pretentious enough to title our paintings)

I thought I might do something magic-related for Halloween, so here you go.

It's been several months since I picked up watercolours, due to this parts of this illustration are a bit rough, but I am low key kinda proud of the composition.

(Close-up)

Another painting! (Am I actually starting to develop a consistent artstyle??)

I felt in the mood to create some Greek mythology related stuff again, so I painted this portrait of Selene, goddess/personification of the moon.

Both the colour scheme and the motive are somewhat inspired by Jules Louis Machards artwork depicting Selene.

I aimed for a somewhat 'soft', 'warm' look, so I avoided stark contrasts, especially in the face and kept the clothing relatively plain, as not to distract with any complicated pattern.

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This took me a while to finish, oddly enough not because of the central figure ir the foliage, but rather because I just couldn't make the colours work out the way I wanted them to. Even now it look a bit dull to me. I guess that's what I get for not planning out a proper colour scheme. It also feels a bit weird to work in a different format if you, like me, usually paint on a 1x1 canvas. You do get used to it in a short amount of time, however.

But, putting all that aside, I do like the way the central figure especially turned out in regards to shading and anatomy. Also, the plants look kinda nice.

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Just a bit of messing around with colours.

(Reddish Orange and desaturated Green is not a combination I expected to work out, but it kinda did)

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(More Zoom-Ins for some details)

As previously mentioned, I am kinda going through a Greek Mythology Phase™ right now, which led me to creating this painting depicting Klytaimnestra after the murder of her husband, Agamemnon. The snake is in reference to a dream she had, in which she gave birth to and nursed a venomous snake/dragon instead of a child, which is seen as a prophecy of her death at the hands of her own son, Orestes.

I decided to do a bit of research into historical Mycenaean Greek dress, seeing as the Epic Cycle and the events directly thereafter are most likely set in the mid to late Bronze Age and as such the style of clothing and architecture would differ considerably from that of the later Archaic, Classical and Hellenistic Periods that is often associated with Greco-Roman mythology.

Then again, I'm not a Historian, Classicist, or anything of the sort, I'm just some random sixteen year old with too much free time on their hands, so I make no promises of accuracy. There are also certain elements that I deliberately left inaccurate, either because it didn't fit the colour scheme, such as the fresco on the wall, which should have had several yellow elements that just looked a bit muddy when I tried to add them, or because I was too lazy to paint them in intricate detail, such as the skirt, which should consist of several layers of different fabric atop each other, but I didn't want to paint all that.

Said skirt is inspired by John Colliers painting also depicting Klytaimnestra after the murder.

Anyway, sorry for the long, nerdy ramble of text, I hope you like the painting and have a nice day :)

(a couple of close ups in case Tumblr fries the quality)

So, I've had a watercolour underpainting for this little portrait for quite a while now, and a couple days ago I decided to finally get out my acrylic paints and paint it. I don't use acrylic paint that much, since it tends to be a bit messier and more work to clean compared to, say, watercolour. Still I am quite happy with how the painting looks.

I'm not entirely sure about the colours, but quite like the composition. I originally wanted to create illuminated-manuscript-style illustrations on the cape, but I ran out of patience halfway through colouring, so I decided to go for a much simpler pattern. I'm also trying to implement slightly more elaborate backgrounds in my traditional illustrations instead of just letting the central character hover in a vaguely defined 'white void'.