painting

For Whom the Bell Tolls

by

At a narrow stone casement, hinges black with iron, a robed figure stands with one hand near the bell-rope and her gaze fixed upon the water. Dawn has turned the sky to rose above a sea of deepening blue, and across that sea come the long ships, dragon-prowed, low and swift, making for the shore below her window. She has seen them. In a moment the rope will move and the bell will speak, and the quiet of the morning will break into flight and prayer. This is For Whom the Bell Tolls, and it holds the instant before the alarm, the last stillness of a coast that does not yet know it has been found.

The painting takes its title from words nine centuries younger than the scene it shows, and it draws its dread from an age when such a sight was the most feared upon the whole northern shore. Both are worth following. What lies below traces the phrase to its author and the ships to their harbours, and returns at the last to the woman at the window.

The bell and its poet

The title comes from John Donne, who in the winter of 1623 lay gravely ill and, hearing the passing-bell toll for another, set down the meditation that has outlived nearly all his sermons. The lines are known even to those who have never opened him: that no man is an island, that every man is a piece of the continent, and that one should never send to know for whom the bell tolls, since it tolls for thee. Donne meant the church bell that announces a death, and he meant the bond that makes another’s death a portion of our own.

There is a fitness in setting his words against this particular shore. The great monastery whose fall opened the age of the raiders stood upon Lindisfarne, which the English have always called the Holy Island. Donne wrote that no man is an island; the painting answers with an island that was a whole world of its own, and shows the sea beginning to wash it away. The bell in her hand is at once the warning-bell of the watch and the tolling-bell of Donne’s meditation, sounding for the living who are about to become the dead, and for a way of life that will not survive the century.

A silhouette of a person looking out of a stone window towards a seascape with boats sailing in the distance, under a pinkish sky.

The first sails: raiders out of the north

The English coast met the Northmen before it feared them. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records that in the reign of Beorhtric, around the year 789, three ships came to Portland in Wessex, and the king’s reeve, a man named Beaduheard, rode down to the strand believing them traders and meaning to bring them to the royal town. They killed him where he stood. It was the first meeting set down in writing, and the chronicler marks it as the first ships of Northmen to seek out the land of the English.

The blow that woke Christendom fell four years later. On the eighth of June in 793, seaborne raiders fell upon the monastery of Saint Cuthbert at Lindisfarne, the richest and most venerated house in Northumbria. They slew the monks or drowned them or carried them off for slaves, stripped the altars, and desecrated the shrine of the saint. Word of the sacrilege ran across Europe. Alcuin of York, then at the court of Charlemagne, wrote to Bishop Higbald in grief and horror, saying that never before had such terror appeared in Britain, and that the heathen had trampled the bodies of the saints in the temple of God like dung in the street. The event is remembered as the raid that began the Viking Age, and the monasteries had good reason to dread the sight of a striped sail. They were undefended, they lay upon the water, and they held their wealth in gold and silver that a shipload of men could carry off in an hour.

The raids that followed were, for two generations, a matter of summer plunder. Ships came, harried a stretch of coast, and were gone before any levy could be raised against them. When resistance did gather, the English often chose the purse over the sword, buying the raiders off with tribute in silver. The payment earned a name that would echo down the centuries: Danegeld, the Dane-gold, the price of a peace that never held for long.

From raid to conquest: the Great Heathen Army

In the year 865 the character of the thing changed altogether. A host far larger than any raiding band came ashore, and it came to stay. The English called it the Great Heathen Army, and later tradition set at its head the sons of the half-legendary Ragnar Lodbrok, among them Ivar the Boneless, Halfdan, and Ubba. Where the earlier fleets had wanted gold, this army wanted land.

It moved with terrible purpose. Within a year it had taken York, which the Northmen made their own and called Jorvik, the beating heart of their power in Britain for a century to come. Northumbria fell, and then East Anglia, whose king Edmund was killed for refusing the invaders’ terms. Mercia was broken and set under a puppet. By the middle of the 870s the greater part of England lay under Scandinavian rule, and of the old kingdoms only Wessex in the south still stood unconquered. It is worth remembering that nearly all we know of these years was written by the churchmen who suffered the raids, so the darkness of the picture owes something to the hands that painted it. The ruin, even so, was real enough.

Alfred and the turning of the tide

Wessex held because of one man. Alfred, called the Great, came to the throne in 871 with the army already loose in his kingdom. In the first days of 878 the Danish leader Guthrum fell upon the royal estate at Chippenham in a surprise attack of midwinter, when no campaign was looked for, and drove the king into hiding in the marshes of Athelney in Somerset. From that low water Alfred gathered the men of the shires, and in May of 878 he met Guthrum at Edington in Wiltshire and broke the Danish army in the field.

The peace that followed was as remarkable as the victory. Guthrum agreed to be baptised, with Alfred himself standing as his sponsor, and the treaty drew a line across England. To the south and west lay Wessex under English law; to the north and east lay the Danelaw, the wide country where Scandinavian custom and speech would hold. The settlement endured in the very ground. The map of England still carries the marks of it, in the hundreds of town names that end in -by and -thorpe and -thwaite, in the northern words that entered the common tongue, and in the city of York that had been Jorvik. The men who came to conquer England had a hand, against their every intention, in the making of it.

What the watcher sees

Return now to the window. The woman at the casement stands where every coastal house of God stood in those years, at the edge of the water with nothing between herself and the sea but the depth of her faith and the weight of a bell. She belongs to the first age, the age of the summer raid, when a watch and a warning were all the defence a priory had. The rose light on the horizon may be the dawn, and it may be the burning of some place along the coast that the ships have already left behind.

Donne’s bell tolls for the one who hears it as much as for the one it mourns. The painting sets that truth in a harder country. She rings for the brothers and sisters behind her, and the ringing is also her own knell, since the ships will reach the shore before the sound has died. In her stillness there is the whole meaning of the meditation, that no soul stands alone and that the passing of one is the diminishing of all. The dragon-ships upon the water carry the oldest fear of the English coast, and the hand upon the rope carries the oldest answer to it, which was to sound the alarm and to pray.

About the painting

For Whom the Bell Tolls is an original acrylic painting on canvas, 18 by 24 inches, by Rob Medley of Kreative Forge. It was painted live at the Ohio Viking Festival, worked before an audience amid the longships and the reenactors, and it came from the brush some while before its companion in mood and moonlight, Blossoming Dream. The two make an interesting pair, the one all dread and dawn, the other all repose and the risen moon.

The painting is available for purchase, and may be seen in person at the faires and festivals where the studio keeps its booth. A fuller gallery of original paintings is a short journey away, and enquiries are always welcome.

Blossoming Dream

by
A purple unicorn resting under pink blossom trees with a moonlit sky in the background.

Beneath a swollen moon, in a grove where the cherry trees loose their blossoms like slow snow, a violet unicorn keeps her repose. She has folded her legs beneath her in the manner of a creature wholly at ease, and she turns her gaze outward past the edge of the world, as though attending to some music the rest of us cannot hear. This is Blossoming Dream, and into one still image it gathers three of the oldest emblems the imagination has kept: the horned beast of purity, the flowering tree of the passing season, and the moon that presides over them both.

Each of these has a long pedigree. Set side by side upon a single canvas, they answer one another in a way that rewards a slower kind of looking. What follows traces the three threads back toward their sources, and shows why they were always meant to be woven together.

The beast older than the bestiaries

The unicorn did not begin in fairy tales. Its earliest surviving description in the West comes from the Greek physician Ctesias of Cnidus, who in the fourth century before our era set down an account of a swift, single-horned “wild ass of India” in his Indica. Ctesias had served as court physician in Persia, and his report, embroidered though it surely was by the campfire testimony of travellers, gave Europe a beast it would keep for two thousand years. Pliny the Elder later fixed the name monoceros upon the creature in his Natural History, and from those classical seeds the whole later flowering grew.

It was the Physiologus, an early Christian book of beasts and their meanings, that gave the unicorn its most enduring story: the fierce animal, untakeable by force, grows gentle in the presence of a maiden and lays its head in her lap, whereupon the hunters close in. The medieval mind read this at once as allegory, the unicorn standing for Christ and the maiden for the Virgin, and so the beast passed into the bestiaries, the cathedrals, and the great woven cycles of the late Middle Ages. Two of those cycles survive as marvels: the seven hangings of the Hunt of the Unicorn at the Met Cloisters, woven around 1500, and the six panels of The Lady and the Unicorn at the Musée de Cluny in Paris. Curiously, the cherry tree that presides over Blossoming Dream has an old kinship with these works. Among the hundred and more plant species identified in the Cloisters tapestries, a flowering cherry stands prominently behind the hunters as they enter the wood.

The horn itself carried a lore apart from the beast. A powder ground from it, the alicorn, was believed to sweat in the presence of poison and to purify tainted water, and so kings paid the price of a small estate for a length of it. Most of these treasures were the spiraled tusks of the narwhal, the small Arctic whale whose ivory tooth, sold across a credulous continent, sustained the legend long after any traveller had claimed to see the animal alive. The connoisseur of unicorns who wishes to go to the root of the matter can do no better than Odell Shepard’s The Lore of the Unicorn, first published in 1930 and still the most graceful survey of the whole tradition.

The unicorn and the moon

Shepard is worth pausing over, for it is he who drew out the thread that binds the unicorn to the moon above her in this painting. In the old symbolic pairings the unicorn was set against the lion, and where the tawny lion stood for the sun, the white unicorn was read as the moon: the one solar, masculine, and blazing; the other lunar, feminine, and cool. The very whiteness of the creature carries the argument, for white and silver were the colours of the moon in the language of the alchemists, colours of receptivity, intuition, and the untainted mind. When lion and unicorn appear together, the symbolists spoke of the coniunctio, the alchemical marriage in which the solar and lunar principles are reconciled and made one.

The connection runs deeper than metaphor. When the arms of the Le Viste family, who commissioned the Cluny tapestries, were deciphered, the heralds found three silver crescent moons upon a band of blue. The moon was woven into the unicorn’s story from the first, quite literally, in silver thread. To place a unicorn beneath a full moon, then, is to return her to her proper heaven. She is a lunar animal come home to the light that made her, and the painter has rendered that moon not as a cold disc but as a living, swirling presence, ringed in a halo of pale fire, the true sovereign of the scene.

The cherry tree and the doctrine of the passing hour

The blossoms falling through the moonlight bring the third and gentlest of the old traditions. The Japanese practice of hanami, the viewing of flowers, reaches back more than twelve centuries. It began in the Nara period, when the aristocracy gathered to admire the plum, and shifted during the Heian period toward the cherry, whose blooming the Emperor Saga made the occasion of formal feasts of poetry and music at the court in Kyoto. From those gatherings grew a whole aesthetic of the cherry blossom that has shaped Japanese art and feeling ever since.

At its centre lies the idea the scholars call mono no aware, the tender awareness of the passing of things. The cherry is beloved precisely because it does not last. It opens all at once in a great pale cloud and falls within a handful of days, and in that brief and brilliant career the beholder reads the whole shape of a life. The eighteenth-century scholar Motoori Norinaga held that the entire task of art was to give voice to this feeling. The warrior class took the blossom for their own emblem for the same reason, seeing in the petal that falls at the height of its beauty a mirror of a life meant to be brief and honourable. The falling petal is the doctrine made visible: loveliness and mortality bound in the same slow descent.

Where the three meet

Set these three together and a single quiet argument emerges. The moon dies to a thread and is reborn, month upon month, the oldest teacher of the truth that endings are only turnings. The blossom falls so that the tree may flower again. And the unicorn, alone among the beasts, is the deathless one, the creature glimpsed only by the pure and never truly taken, a figure of what does not pass at all.

In Blossoming Dream these meet without strain. The unicorn reclines in the very rain of falling petals, the undying amid the dying, and over both presides the moon that reconciles the two. It is a picture of rest inside the turning of things, of the eternal keeping company with the transient and finding it beautiful. Readers who follow such currents will recognise the temper of the Codex of the Outer Realms, whose whole concern is the contemplative reading of ancient symbols; the painting speaks the same language in colour that the Codex speaks in prose.

About the painting

Blossoming Dream is an original acrylic painting on canvas by Rob Medley, worked in a palette of deep violet, moonlit blue, and blossom pink. It is one of a body of original fantasy and visionary paintings offered through Kreative Forge, the independent studio of Rob Medley, and it may be seen in person at the Renaissance and medieval faires where the studio keeps its booth through the season.

The painting is available for purchase. Enquiries, prices, and a fuller gallery of original paintings are all a short journey away. Those who would keep a little of the moonlit grove upon their own wall are warmly invited to write.

Firefly Redux

by

I channeled Leo Villarreal when I originally did this back in 2015. Over shows it received some damage, so I spent today putting it back together. It will be at my booth for the Great Lakes Medieval Faire. It needs a home. Here are some repair process pictures.

One of the frames came loose. As you can see from the next one, I painted both sides of the canvas, much like I did for “Artistic Triage.”

Back-side above, front below.

You can’t really see it here but I use blue, green, and purple to achieve the presence of all colors… or is it the absence?

Taken from above on my bed. The painting is 30×40 (I think). She’s big.

Here’s where Villarreal comes in. The painting lights up. It’s electric USB so there needs to be an outlet nearby.

It’s also 3D. Admittedly, modern art was a phase for me, I found out it wasn’t my jam, so there’s only 2-3 pieces in that category.

View from the bottom. The fireflies are hanging out over the grass.

Available for purchase.

Believe

by

“Believe” arrives at the hour when the visible world loosens its grip and the older one beneath begins to glow. A wisteria, ancient and twice-twisted, holds the center of the canvas, its trunk rising from the dark margin of a still pond into a canopy heavy with bloom. Magenta and rose gather at the crown, while the long racemes descend in violet curtains toward the water, each pendant cluster trailing like a thought too patient to be spoken aloud.

Believe

The phenomenon that gives the piece its strange pulse is bioluminescence. Veins of cold blue light run the length of the trunk and gather in the roots, as though the tree had swallowed a portion of the moon and kept it burning within. That same light returns in the water at its feet, doubled and softened, so that the wisteria appears to stand upon its own reflected fire. Above, a slender crescent presides over a sky banked with luminous cloud, an old companion to anyone who has kept watch through the small hours.

Wisteria has long carried meanings that exceed its beauty. In the gardens of the East it stands for longevity and the endurance of devotion, its woody vines outliving the generations that first planted them. The Art Nouveau masters, Tiffany foremost among them, prized its cascading form for the way it dissolved the boundary between architecture and growth. Here the flower serves an older purpose still, marking the place where the seen and the unseen exchange their confidences, where all that hangs downward toward the dark is answered by all that rises upward toward the light.

The title asks little and offers much. Belief, in the sense the painting intends, is the quiet conviction that the dark is never merely the absence of light. The void was never empty. Something has always been waiting within the roots, within the water, within the patient descent of the blossoms, ready to shine for those who hold their gaze long enough to see it.

“Believe” is an original acrylic painting on canvas, eighteen by twenty-four inches. Sold.

Whispers by Firelight

by
Figures gathered around a small campfire under a glowing moon, the surrounding wilderness fading into cool blues and shadow

The painting unfolds beneath a vast nocturnal sky where moonlight and firelight share the same stage, each illuminating the landscape in different ways. At the center of the composition a campfire burns intensely, its warm reds and oranges pushing outward against the cool indigo and violet tones of the night. This contrast between warm and cool light forms the emotional heart of the work. The fire gathers the figures, tents, and earth into a circle of life and community, while the moon casts a silvery wash across the surrounding wilderness, expanding the scene outward into quiet solitude.

Whispers by Firelight

The brushwork leans toward a light-driven impressionism, where form emerges through color and gesture rather than rigid detail. Clouds move in sweeping strokes that echo the movement of wind and atmosphere, creating a sense of motion in the sky. The trees stand skeletal and quiet, their silhouettes framing the scene like stage wings. These gestural marks allow the viewer’s eye to complete the image, a hallmark of impressionistic technique where suggestion carries as much weight as description.

Light itself becomes the true subject of the painting. The moon glows softly through the shifting clouds, bathing the landscape in a cool luminosity that dissolves edges and deepens the mystery of the forest. In contrast, the fire pulses with raw vitality, throwing sparks of color onto the tents and ground. The interaction between these two sources of light creates a layered visual rhythm, drawing the viewer inward toward the human gathering while still honoring the vastness of the surrounding night.

The scene ultimately becomes less about a specific place and more about atmosphere and memory. The viewer is invited into a moment suspended in time, where wilderness, community, and sky converge under a luminous moon. Through color harmony, expressive brushwork, and the interplay of natural light, the painting captures that timeless human ritual of gathering around fire beneath the open night.

Convergence

by
A medieval castle sits in afternoon light, suspended between history and something older

I did not set out to paint a ghost story. I set out to paint a castle.
Somewhere in the process, the painting decided what it wanted to be, which is something any painter who has spent serious time at the easel will recognize. You plan one thing and the canvas negotiates. Convergence is the result of that negotiation.


The castle came first. I have always been drawn to medieval architecture, to the logic of towers and curtain walls, to the way a fortress sits upon its hill with the particular confidence of something built to last. I wanted that warmth of late afternoon stone, that ochre and sienna glow that makes old masonry look almost alive. I wanted it to feel prosperous. Safe. Untroubled….That feeling of false safety is where the painting’s real subject announced itself.

Convergence


The ghost came next, rising from the lower left, from the water. She was always going to be there. I cannot entirely explain her except to say that certain paintings require a witness, and she is that witness, patient, translucent, unhurried. She has been waiting longer than the castle has stood.


The storm was already building in the upper right. The mountains there carry that particular grey-blue of approaching weather, and the clouds push down toward the valley with no great urgency, which makes them more ominous rather than less. Urgency can be outrun. That slow, indifferent gathering cannot.


Between the ghost and the storm, the castle sits in its afternoon light, entirely unaware. The blue sky above it still looks like an ordinary day. That is the heart of the matter.
The swans were the last element to fully resolve, and I am most pleased with them. The large bird in the foreground demanded honesty, the exact orange-red of the bill, the weight of the body on the water. Swans have carried enormous symbolic weight across European tradition for a very long time, and I wanted these birds to earn their place in that company rather than merely decorate the foreground. They are witnesses too, though of a different order than the ghost. They are simply living their lives, indifferent to the drama gathering above them, which strikes me as true to how the world actually works.


My partner named the painting. She looked at it and said convergence, and that was the end of the matter. She saw immediately what I had been working toward, the ghost, the storm, and the castle all moving toward the same moment of reckoning along their separate paths. The regent in that tower, whoever he may be, has a buried past. The painting knows this even if he does not.


If I’m asked what tradition this work belongs to. I would say it belongs to the tradition of moral landscape, the idea, running from the Northern European painters through the Romantics, that the natural world is not merely scenery. It reflects. It remembers. It converges.

Christmas Truce (Zeit zu Gehen)

by
A walrus and two penguins build a snowman on a frozen Antarctic plain, snow glowing with lavender shadows

On its surface this is a Christmas painting, playful and absurd: a walrus and two penguins building a snowman on a frozen plain in Antarctica. The snow glows with lavender shadows, a scrap of seaweed crowns the snowman’s head like a Christmas hat, and the birds offer their small contributions with comic solemnity. The walrus … Read more

Fortune’s Gambit

by

“Fortune’s Gambit” – A Study in Color, Chaos, and Fate In Fortune’s Gambit, Rob conjures a world where nature’s fury and fate’s indifference converge in a breathtaking display of movement, texture, and atmosphere. The piece captures a spectral wreck, its rotting hull and tattered sails draped in ghostly decay, caught in an eternal struggle against … Read more

New Year, New Creations

by

Hello everyone! It’s 2025! This year is going to be a year of change for me, with lots going on in my life. Art wise, I’ll still be going strong, though I must admit I took some time to invest in a series of books I’m writing. I’m also actively writing poetry, and journeying into music creation.

My rock and muse, Jessica is by my side, supporting my shenanigans, so expect a lot of creativity!

Here’s a 2024 in review, in case you missed any of the art.

A vibrant underwater scene with diverse marine life including fish, a clownfish, a lionfish, and stingrays swimming around a sunken ship. Bright corals and plants frame the scene under a luminous blue ocean surface.
A painting of a wooden ship with white sails navigating through choppy waves. Two dolphins leap alongside, emerging from the vibrant blue ocean, with a sky painted in soft pastel hues in the background.
A painting of a red fox sitting in a lush green forest clearing. Tall trees surround the fox, and the sky is a mix of green, blue, and white, creating a serene atmosphere.
A painting of a red fox sitting in a lush green forest clearing. Tall trees surround the fox, and the sky is a mix of green, blue, and white, creating a serene atmosphere.
A colorful painting of a snail with a green shell and a bright blue bow. The snail is on a red surface, set against a green, starry background.
A colorful painting of a snail with a green shell and a bright blue bow. The snail is on a red surface, set against a green, starry background.
A whimsical painting of an otter wearing a Santa hat. It stands in water, holding a purple sea urchin, next to a decorated underwater Christmas tree adorned with various colorful ornaments. The background features swirling blue waves.
A whimsical painting of an otter wearing a Santa hat. It stands in water, holding a purple sea urchin, next to a decorated underwater Christmas tree adorned with various colorful ornaments. The background features swirling blue waves.
A fluffy white cat with blue eyes sits beside a large mushroom with holly decorations. The background features a red and brown abstract pattern, resembling part of a Santa suit. The cat appears curious, near a small green dish.
A fluffy white cat with blue eyes sits beside a large mushroom with holly decorations. The background features a red and brown abstract pattern, resembling part of a Santa suit. The cat appears curious, near a small green dish.
A winter night scene features a large, glowing full moon in the background. Silhouetted against it is a sleigh pulled by eight reindeer flying over a snowy village with evergreen trees and a clock tower.
A winter night scene features a large, glowing full moon in the background. Silhouetted against it is a sleigh pulled by eight reindeer flying over a snowy village with evergreen trees and a clock tower.
A painting of a blue bird perched inside a festive wreath adorned with pine cones, red berries, and greenery, against a dark wooden background.
A painting of a blue bird perched inside a festive wreath adorned with pine cones, red berries, and greenery, against a dark wooden background.
A painting of a woman with long, flowing hair, wearing a red dress and gold jewelry. A black raven perches on her shoulder. The background is an abstract swirl of earth tones.
A painting of a majestic sailing ship with illuminated windows on a starry night sea. The sky is filled with sparkling stars, and waves gently lap against the vessel's hull. The ship sails through a mystical, glowing seascape.
A painting of a majestic sailing ship with illuminated windows on a starry night sea. The sky is filled with sparkling stars, and waves gently lap against the vessel’s hull. The ship sails through a mystical, glowing seascape.
A traveler holding a torch stands before a large, mystical stone face with glowing eyes. The mouth serves as a tunnel entrance, surrounded by lush, glowing vegetation. The scene is illuminated in blue and green hues.
A traveler holding a torch stands before a large, mystical stone face with glowing eyes. The mouth serves as a tunnel entrance, surrounded by lush, glowing vegetation. The scene is illuminated in blue and green hues.
Triptych painting titled 'The Morrigan' depicting a mythological figure with dark, expansive wings in shades of blue and purple. The central figure sits on a rocky surface, surrounded by a cloudy, stormy sky. Bare tree branches extend behind her, with crows perched among them, adding a sense of foreboding to the scene. Her expression is calm yet intense, embodying the mysterious and powerful presence of the Morrigan, a goddess of fate and transformation in Irish mythology.
Triptych painting titled ‘The Morrigan’ depicting a mythological figure with dark, expansive wings in shades of blue and purple. The central figure sits on a rocky surface, surrounded by a cloudy, stormy sky. Bare tree branches extend behind her, with crows perched among them, adding a sense of foreboding to the scene. Her expression is calm yet intense, embodying the mysterious and powerful presence of the Morrigan, a goddess of fate and transformation in Irish mythology.
A mystical figure in a green robe, adorned with a floral crown, stands in a snowy, moonlit forest. They hold a staff and a pouch, as Christmas magic swirls among the snow and bare trees under the glowing full moon.
A cute raccoon wearing a Santa hat is holding a half-eaten cookie. It stands behind a green plate with more cookie pieces on it, against a colorful background with stars and circles. The setting is festive and whimsical.
A haunting scene of three deteriorating pirate ships anchored in a swamp, surrounded by twisted, leafless trees with hanging moss. The sky is a moody, pale green, and a weathered, wooden dock leads to the ships through the foggy water.
A haunting scene of three deteriorating pirate ships anchored in a swamp, surrounded by twisted, leafless trees with hanging moss. The sky is a moody, pale green, and a weathered, wooden dock leads to the ships through the foggy water.
Digital artwork depicts a surreal underwater scene with a glowing jellyfish, a large blue skull partially submerged in sand, an angler fish, and colorful, plant-like structures in the background. Small white fish swim around the elements, adding to the ethereal atmosphere.
Digital artwork depicts a surreal underwater scene with a glowing jellyfish, a large blue skull partially submerged in sand, an angler fish, and colorful, plant-like structures in the background. Small white fish swim around the elements, adding to the ethereal atmosphere.
An adventurer holding a torch stands before a massive, ancient stone face with a tunnel-like mouth. The figure is framed by lush, dark greenery, and the stone face emits an eerie glow from its eyes, highlighting the mysterious atmosphere of the scene.
An adventurer holding a torch stands before a massive, ancient stone face with a tunnel-like mouth. The figure is framed by lush, dark greenery, and the stone face emits an eerie glow from its eyes, highlighting the mysterious atmosphere of the scene.
A dark, gothic painting of a somber figure with large, black wings and long, dark hair. The figure sits curled up on a rocky outcrop under a cloudy sky, surrounded by leafless tree branches. The background includes distant flying birds, evoking the mystical essence of Morrigan.
A dark, gothic painting of a somber figure with large, black wings and long, dark hair. The figure sits curled up on a rocky outcrop under a cloudy sky, surrounded by leafless tree branches. The background includes distant flying birds, evoking the mystical essence of Morrigan.
A spooky Halloween-themed painting featuring a large pumpkin, a black cat with glowing yellow eyes, and four crows, one of which is holding a green bucket. Dark, eerie tones and shadows add to the mysterious atmosphere.
A black cat with bright yellow eyes sits in front of a glowing orange pumpkin, adding a touch of spice to the scene. Surrounding the cat are three blackbirds, one of which holds a green bucket in its beak. The scene is illuminated with warm, eerie light, creating a mystical atmosphere.
A painting of a woman in a hooded cloak standing in a snowy landscape near a river. She holds an owl on her gloved hand. The background features bare trees and a soft, muted color palette of blues, greens, and whites.
Painting of a mysterious hooded woman in a long dress standing beside a blue lake in a wintery landscape. She holds a white owl on her left arm. The background is filled with bare trees and frosted ground. The scene has a mystical, serene atmosphere, reminiscent of Christmas mythology and the legend of Pertcha.
A surreal painting depicts a raccoon’s face formed by vibrant, flowing aurora borealis lights against a starry night sky. The colorful streaks in hues of green, pink, and blue create a mystical atmosphere, blending seamlessly with the dark, grassy landscape below.
A surreal painting depicts a raccoon’s face formed by vibrant, flowing aurora borealis lights against a starry night sky. The colorful streaks in hues of green, pink, and blue create a mystical atmosphere, blending seamlessly with the dark, grassy landscape below.
A detailed painting of a black crow perched on a snowy rock in a winter forest. The background features tall evergreen trees against a colorful sky with hues of pink, purple, and blue, suggesting a sunrise or sunset. Snow blankets the ground and tree branches.
A painted depiction of a historic longship at sea with a blue sky and scattered clouds in the background. The wooden structure has ropes, a carved figurehead, and a shield on its side. The water appears calm with a distant land formation visible on the horizon.
A surreal painting depicts a hooded figure with a dark, skeletal face partially obscured by green, tentacle-like appendages under a crimson sky. Leafless trees frame the background, creating an eerie and mystical atmosphere.
A surreal painting shows a dark, ghostly figure with a skull face and antlers. It has long, flowing green and yellow tendrils reminiscent of Lovecraftian horrors. The background features a barren, twisted tree and a red, ominously colored sky.
A vivid painting depicts three mermaids watching a ship sail into a colorful sunset. The sea glistens with shades of blue, reflecting the vibrant, cloud-streaked sky in hues of pink, orange, and purple. The mermaids sit on rocks, their tails shimmering in the light.
A mosaic-style painting depicts a woman with curly brown hair and multi-colored butterfly wings. She is wearing a blue top and holding a vibrant bouquet of red flowers. The background features shades of yellow, purple, and pink.
A mosaic-style painting depicts a woman with curly brown hair and multi-colored butterfly wings. She is wearing a blue top and holding a vibrant bouquet of red flowers. The background features shades of yellow, purple, and pink.
A painting of a spooky, old house in a snowy landscape. The house has a tall, pointed tower and a wrap-around porch. A leafless tree stands to the right, with a human face subtly carved in the trunk. Three birds sit on its branch. A snow-covered path leads to the house.
A painting of a spooky, old house with gothic Victorian architecture under a night sky. The house has turrets and pointed roofs, surrounded by winter snow. A bare tree with an eerie face carved into its trunk stands in the foreground, with crows perched on its branch and the ghost of a shadow lingering near.
A vibrant painting depicts a lush jungle scene with ancient, temple-like structures in the background. The foreground features detailed greenery with a chameleon perched on a leaf, while various jungle animals, including an elephant and a peacock, blend into the surroundings.
An underwater scene featuring a glowing blue jellyfish, small fish, an eerie skull, and a small sunken structure in the background. The background is dark, and colorful seaweed and other aquatic plants add to the mysterious ambiance.
The Perfect Gift," a Christmas-themed painting, features a fluffy brown dog wearing a Santa hat, sitting on a red rug next to a decorated tree adorned with ornaments. The background is purple with gold garland, and the artist's signature, @robmedleyart, is visible near the tree.
The Perfect Gift,” a Christmas-themed painting, features a fluffy brown dog wearing a Santa hat, sitting on a red rug next to a decorated tree adorned with ornaments. The background is purple with gold garland, and the artist’s signature, @robmedleyart, is visible near the tree.
A dramatic painting depicts three pirates in a small rowboat facing a large, ornate pirate ship on the open sea at sunset. The pirate in the back is pointing toward the ship, suggesting a plan or direction. The waters reflect the colorful sky.
Pirates in a small boat approach a large, ornate, and menacing galleon named “R. P. S. Shadow” on the open sea. One pirate points towards the ship while another with a colorful headscarf and wide-eyed expression looks back. The sky glows with sunset colors as they continue sailing forward.
The Summering" depicts a surreal scene where a figure with angelic wings and long hair stands by a lake, holding a small object. Two smaller winged figures, possibly children, sit on the ground nearby. An eerie gazebo entwined with snake-like tentacles stands beside them.
The Waiting Shore painting features a peaceful scene: a woman sitting under a large tree, gazing at a calm blue lake. In the backdrop, a boat sails between two verdant hills, while the sky is painted with pink and orange clouds, indicating either sunrise or sunset.
Painting of a mystical forest at night with a glowing full moon. An Ancestral Warden, humanoid with antlers, greenish skin, and glowing eyes leans against a tree. Silhouetted trees and a misty luminescent stream enhance the eerie, enchanted atmosphere.
Painting of a mystical forest at night with a glowing full moon. An Ancestral Warden, humanoid with antlers, greenish skin, and glowing eyes leans against a tree. Silhouetted trees and a misty luminescent stream enhance the eerie, enchanted atmosphere.
A painting depicts a stone castle with a tall, round tower situated on a rocky cliff overlooking a body of water. The sky is filled with soft, colorful clouds at sunset or sunrise, casting an Arcadian Echoes glow on the scene. Lush vegetation surrounds the castle.
A painting depicts a stone castle with a tall, round tower situated on a rocky cliff overlooking a body of water. The sky is filled with soft, colorful clouds at sunset or sunrise, casting an Arcadian Echoes glow on the scene. Lush vegetation surrounds the castle.
A sea turtle on the beach
A colorful painting depicts a woman with her cat sitting by a roaring campfire in a forest. The scene is illuminated by the fire's glow and a starry night sky overhead. Trees surround them, and foliage is visible on the ground, adding an enchanting touch to this forest pagan setting.
A colorful painting depicts a woman with her cat sitting by a roaring campfire in a forest. The scene is illuminated by the fire’s glow and a starry night sky overhead. Trees surround them, and foliage is visible on the ground, adding an enchanting touch to this forest pagan setting.
A painting depicts a lush landscape with a large, leafy tree at the center. A small, white cat peeks out from a hollow log in the foreground, surrounded by tall green grass. In the background, there are ancient, weathered stone columns under a bright blue sky with wispy clouds.
Whispers of the Ancients
A painting of a Viking ship with a dragon figurehead and red-and-white striped sail, navigating through a turbulent sea. In the background, there are waterfalls and a dramatic, stormy sky with hints of green and purple light.
Waves of Fortune

Home for Christmas

by

“Home for the Holidays” is a whimsical acrylic painting featuring a snail with a bow against a Christmas tree backdrop, merging humor and holiday spirit. With vibrant colors and an ethereal background, it invites viewers to appreciate life’s pace during festivities. Snails, significant in ecosystems and culture, symbolize resilience and connection to nature.

Winter Visitor

by
A painting of a blue bird perched inside a festive wreath adorned with pine cones, red berries, and greenery, against a dark wooden background.

“Winter Visitor” captures a moment of serene beauty, centering on a Blue Jay perched within a festive door wreath. The painting exudes a rustic charm, with the natural wooden backdrop enhancing the vibrant greens, purples, and reds of the wreath’s foliage and berries. The attention to detail in the foliage creates a lifelike texture that … Read more

The Evolution of Nimueh

by

Rob Medley’s painting, The Evolution of Nimueh, vividly depicts the mythological Lady of the Lake, showcasing her ethereal beauty and wisdom. Featuring a dramatic interplay of light and shadow, the artwork illustrates Nimueh’s duality as both enchantress and protector, with a raven symbolizing her connection to life and death, highlighting her enduring legacy.