I'm really proud to share what's probably my first painting in 15 years! Oðinn Driptych (Huginn & Muninn)! I've always loved painting, and I created several paintings when I was a child, even more as I started learning art history. However, I started to struggle with self-judgement/criticism and perfectionism in my early teen years and stopped painting for a long time. I felt like I could be more easily precise with pencil, and while I struggled with judgement there too, thankfully I kept drawing. I even took a drawing class when I was 17, and eventually gained more confidence and started copying some paintings/drawings from my favorite artists (like I also did when first getting into art history) for inspiration, and now drawing comics again! For painting though, it wasn't until a couple years ago that I started feeling inspired to try painting again, as I was feeling increasingly confident in my drawing skills and healing judgement wounds and self-doubt.
I started the first panel in 2024 (which is the winter/blue side), starting with a pencil drawing on the canvas of the basic outline of what I initially visualized (which was a raven sitting on a tree log that doubled as Oðinn's arm/shoulder). I painted over the penciling with black paint for an outline for the colors, similar to how I've done for inking/coloring my comics, and the way Roy Lichtenstein used distinct thick outlines in his paintings has long inspired my work. As I started painting, more ideas came to me, some for later and some I painted in the moment of flow state (the other birds in both panels and Skaði skiing in the mountains of the background in the winter panel). One of those ideas was to add Geri and Freki, Oðinn's two wolves, which was my first time drawing/painting wolves! I'm amazed at the progress from just one panel to the next. Frigg is in the background of the summer panel, which I had started that panel last year in 2025. I learned a lot painting these, about color mixing, sketching an outline on canvas before painting, trusting intuitive guidance, patience, connecting to my Norse heritage and god/goddess/animals in new ways, and overcoming self-judgement and attachments to outcome among more I'm sure. I also painted directly from nature in a way for the first time, the futurist Morning Dove in the winter panel I painted as I was watching its beautiful motion out my window.
These are oil on canvas, which even though most of the paintings I made as a kid were acrylic or tempera paints, I always felt drawn to oil paints. There's something about the feel, texture, and look that I really love, especially the thick impasto style. The first painting I ever made on canvas was with oils, and here's a picture of it:
It's Perseus and Medusa under the constellations, I painted this in 2006 I'm pretty sure, which was when I first started getting interested in art history. I always felt drawn to ancient spiritual/mythological stories and subjects as well, be it Ancient Greek/Mediterranean, Hindu, Shinto, Norse, or another culture. I'm really proud of 7-year old me and his awesome painting, I love the layers between the night sky, land, and underground. Feels really good painting again.
How do you feel about the painting, what are your thoughts? Has there ever been something you've loved since childhood but stopped for a while before reclaiming that part of yourself?
