The Seductive Goddess Of Ephemeral Consumerism

A sketch by me, Jason Carswell, last week for my neighbour, while playing chess over beers.

Medium resolution

Image page with this same text and hyperlinks to things I mention: https://infogalactic.com/info/File:The_Seductive_Goddess_Of_Ephemeral_Consumerism.jpg

In 2006 I did a sketch of a levitating woman with a smile-head (filed away somewhere, yet to be uploaded). A month ago I was explaining to my other neighbour Todd how I'd like to develop the idea into a painting but with much more interesting stuff to it - so I made another really rough sketch of it - and in trying out different arm positions I realized I liked the South-East Asian God kinda thing - sorta like Kid Beyond's 2006 album cover for Amplivate. I gave the crude sketch to another neighbour, Fred, for whom I'd written across the sketch with internet address to things on InfoGalactic, SaidIt, and WikiSpooks.

Last week, I forget which day, playing chess and listening to Fred and his acoustic guitar, I fleshed the idea out a bit more into something of a complete rough sketch, including hand gestures, wings, clouds, and rays. I'm not sure about it all or if I should swap out some elements for other ideas, but I'm generally happy how the concept is developing.

Notably absent that I've been thinking about since before the second sketch is some kind of fabric, semi-floating and flowing almost like a ribbon, spiraling around her loosely, like a skimpy toga dancing like a whirlwind flame, inspired by that Uma Thurman as Venus scene in The Adventures of Baron Munchausen. I'm conflicted because I'd like to showcase my idealized female form. On the other hand I want this fabric to be orange, highly contrasting with the blue sky, a contrast that is inspired by the abundance of examples in the Renaissance and later, though usually more strikingly when the orange fabric contrasts with blue fabric.

Also of note is the bold strong graphic outline and dynamic gesture. Initially I had intended to make the body and smile with reasonably realistic proportions to be semi-surrealistic. I hadn't considered making this image more of a cartoony graphic design until I employed it in this sketch (to correct and emphasize the proportions as I had no eraser). I added the clouds to make it clear she was levitating. I also added the rays (not well done with not enough rays) as a comic book inspired dynamic graphic.