In the Palm of Her Hand

March 24, 2025 (start) - TBD (in process)

Recently I played a visually stunning video game called Gris. Its a platformer that explores the stages of grief. The game starts out in black and white and slowly adds color to the world as you progress through the stages. The developer, Nomada Studio, really impressed me with the art design - the style is a very graphic watercolor vibe that was so fun to explore. The blue stage was very aesthetic and really inspired me, so I decided to do a piece in oils to follow that inspiration. I picked a small 5”x7” linen faced aluminum panel and quickly blocked in the shapes.

I think this piece is my first attempt at a monochromatic style painting, at least in oils. I only used three paints for this - manganese blue, ultramarine blue, and titanium white (which was only used for tinting and color mixing). I often use brush strokes to emphasize form, but this style forced me to really lean into that technique, since all of the color is so similar.

At this point, I’m really liking how it looks. Now its just the waiting game, letting it dry enough so I can go in for a final refinement run, cleaning up edges and adding in small details to finish this guy off.