Soma

I saw these really neat Siberian shaman costumes, and wanted to paint something wearing one, and then of course, the fly agaric mushroom had to be involved, since the drug soma is supposedly used by Siberian shamans, and derives from it. (And because someone always asks, the antlers are from stag beetles.) Everybody always paints the Plains Indians costumes, because they're neat lookin', but other cultures had neat outfits too!

All that said, I still like the idea, but I just wasn't all that pleased with the execution. The paint went where I wanted it to, it did what I asked, but the sketch, even as a simple posed character study, had a great deal more vitality. This is missing whatever essential spark was in the sketch that made me want to paint it. And I can never figure out quite what I'm missing--sometimes it's the one line that changes the whole thing, ya know?

This sort of thing frustrates me, but I figured I'd put it up here anyway, since someone may wish to give the mousie a home. It's mixed media on illo board, 8.75 x 13.5. The original, therefore, is for sale, prints are available, drop a line.