I spent most of Saturday finishing Wendy’s painting. You might remember the small ribosome painting I did for her website, which is now up. Check it out. But she also wanted a larger one for her office. I actually started this back in Vermont in October, but felt that it looked a little more Grateful Dead than I was going for. I wasn’t sure quite what to do about that so I stashed it next to my supply shelf and moved on to other things. Here’s the Grateful Dead version:
When I saw that the website was up I figured it was time to go finish the painting. The challenge here was making the ribosomes relate to the background. I wanted them to pop but I also wanted the background to hold it’s own. The solution I found was to break the background into chunks of similar size to the ribosomes. I used a slightly toned-down white and overlaid it on the background I had already painted. With only one color to work with I got to play around with different ways of applying the paint: thick and thin, letting it run with excess solvent, rubbing it on with a rag and off again with a brush. Here’s a close-up of some of the texture:
Oh and I should note that although the little pink and blue lines may look like squiggles, technically they are messenger RNAs. At least Wendy recognized them.
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