Iceland Residency 2014 | Eyja

I love weird landscapes. I love inscrutable waterfalls, I love columnar basalt, I love incomprehensibly massive glacial tongues and unexpected volcanic activity. I love all of this stuff, and so it frustrates me to no end that it’s so rarely reflected in my own work. I spend most of my time (both professionally and personally) designing characters and costuming, so this show seemed as good a chance as any to step out of my comfort zone and focus on honing my landscape painting skills. Hard to go wrong with Iceland in the landscape department.

I did a few plein air studies while on-site in Iceland, but most of my time during the residency was spent just taking photos and trying to absorb the scenery. I ended up with ten finished paintings, and tried to focus on some of the imagery during the trip that really stuck with me – the acidic green mosses, the almost eternally overcast sky, the force of water, the semi-abandoned structures. As much as I enjoyed the scenery, it’s not ha