Based on a song by Sail North called Tale of the Shadow, this painting recreates the discovery of a ghost treasure ship, the Shadow, which has a reputation for being untamable.
I painted this at the Washington Midsummer Renaissance faire last weekend. It’s not the best photo.
While quietly enjoying a drink, the pirate Captain is disturbed when an old foe walks in the tavern. This started as another modern model covergirl style artwork and quickly went pirate, because rum drinking, bacon eating, ship sailing, rough and tumble pirates are much more interesting than antiseptic salad eating models, right?
The Demeter was a very unlucky ship. Decades before it would become famous as the transport of a more famous vampire, it was found adrift in the Black Sea, it’s crew ripped asunder by some inhumanly strong being. Records recovered in the port of Varna showed that the ship onboarded several crates of antique furniture and a giant portrait of a noblewoman, supposedly that of Justina Szilágyi de Horogszeg, second wife of Vlad al III-lea Țepeș, aka Vlad the Impaler, son of Vlad II Dracul. The collection was destined for Montenegro, a vibrant coastal town on the Adriatic. Traveling with the collection was a young woman of questionable nobility, and some wealth, who was presented as the custodian of the shipment. Her fate is ultimately unknown, as she was not found among the bodies of the crew on the smoldering vessel. The ship was subsequently towed back to Varna for refit, but soon found itself bridled with an unwanted nickname, Justina’s Larder, for in the run-down waterfront shops and taverns, a rumor persisted that the missing traveler bore an uncanny resemblance to the 400 year-old portrait of the long dead queen.
Note: this is NOT AI. It took hours and hours to get everything right.
While quietly enjoying a drink, the pirate Captain is disturbed when an old foe walks in the tavern. This started as another modern model covergirl style artwork and quickly went pirate, because rum drinking, bacon eating, ship sailing, rough and tumble pirates are much more interesting than antiseptic salad eating models, right?
I’m including two versions. So the above is overexposed to give those with phones (basically everyone) a chance to see it. Below is the original that is true to color for a gallery. Since this is supposed to be in a dimly lit tavern, it shows up dark on phones.
Somewhere in the waters below her ship, Mary slowly swam forward, in order to reduce the disturbance of the water. She was certain the rain would provide cover, but wanted absolute surprise on the skullduggeries of her mutinous crew. Sword in hand, dagger in mouth, hair floating about her, and a match in her cap, … Read more
Cheng I Sao, Anne Bonny, Mary Read, Grace O’Malley, Rachel Wall, all famous female pirates. But these are the ones who survived. Beneath the waves, the souls of the watery deep call out their story of defiance, forever lost to history. Closer… An earlier one I didn’t really like.
She waits on the shores of the Siren Sea, opposite the Fields of Unformed Desires. Her song calls to the pirate vessel that she will captain across the mists of the cerulean waters. Full disclosure, the pose/idea is based on a photo (not mine) taken of a friend on whom I’ve had a school-boy crush … Read more
You can take the #pirate off the ship, ‘swallow the anchor’ so to speak, but you can’t take the pirate out of the girl. I threw a filter on this to brighten it up. Since I like #dusk / #dawn settings it came out dark again. I also had an existential run in with my #art being good enough, and whether or not to just stop, but I decided the world needs bad art too. So, yeah, this one took a week to do. #artwork #motherhood #digitalart #homedefense #painting post #goldenageofpiracy
