Acrylic Paint on 50cm x 60 cm (~19.5in x 23.5in) wooden panel. Tallinn, Estonia. 2018.
'Space Jellyfish' - not the most original name I must admit 😂 When I showed this painting for the first time, I didn't have a title. You kept asking me 'Are those jellyfish, in space..?'
'Yeah, Space Jellyfish!' was the only answer I had.
This is one my most unique paintings to date. I brought together a lot of newfound skills over the past couple of years to complete Space Jellyfish. My paintings usually include large skies, which are often embellished and prominent. When painting outer space, I usually throw in a lot of extra stars and large ones too.
I kept it more chill in Space Jellyfish. 'Hey Matt,' you might say, 'The sky is still more than half the background!' I would say you are right, but its a slow fade to space, which is pretty big anyway 😉 I used fewer and smaller stars to try to give you a feeling where atmosphere ends and space begins. I also had a happy accident with those blue flares appearing in the black part of the sky. I think it gives it some sort of galactical wispiness.
Unlike my other paintings, there is little to no texture in Space Jellyfish. Its all flat paint on wooden panel, so it is quite smooth (and was really easy to varnish!). I painted exclusively with a brush - instead of using my fingers and globs of paint.
The red planet was the last part of the background painted and then I waited. And I stared. And for a long time I had a painting of Mars that was missing any semblance of foreground elements...😅
I knew I had to take some action, otherwise this would sit in the bucket. I started thinking of some unexpectedly strange and surreal ideas of what to include. I jumped on the first idea I knew I could paint, and that was jellyfish! For the tail of the jellyfish, I used the same technique as the clouds from Sunshine Daydream. They are only partial circles this time but the same concept. (There is a link below if you want to compare the two paintings!)
For the colors of the jellyfish....I figured they are mostly translucent so I tried to pull the colors from the background behind them. The colors are slightly different, especially with the orange one, and I hoped that this would make the jellyfish stand out more, otherwise they would fade too much into the background.
By the way! It was only after I completed this painting that I learned about the phenomenon called Space Jellyfish. Sometimes, when we are launching a rocket into space, the exhaust clouds can catch the sunlight and form really cool jellyfish looking creatures in the sky. Check it out!
Space Jellyfish phenomenon: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_jellyfish
Sunshine Daydream: https://www.redshellmartell.com/post/sunshine-daydream
☮♥RSM.
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