The Horrors Beyond Mortal Comprehension of Painting
By
Edward Cody Huddleston
Well, hey there, friends! Zdzisław Beksiński here. Today, we’re going to paint something unfathomably dreadful. We’re going deep into your unconscious for this one. But that’s okay. That’s where the magic happens.
Don’t worry. We’ll run the colors, bodily fluids, and restricted chemicals you’ll need across your screen now. Just dip your brush into the artery red here. Mix it with just a bit of mustard gas yellow.
We’re going to start on something—sort of a column that looks like it’s made from desiccated remains. The trick is how the sunlight in the background bleeds, well, into the blood right here.
Now, maybe in our world, there’s a happy little skull. Switch to your filbert brush and add some padded room white. I’m just going to use straight padded room white.
Light, quick strokes. There you go. Add another skull if you want to … because everyone needs a friend. Heck, you might do a pile of skulls, but I think that’s a little too obvious. Remember, the key to art is showing, not telling. That’s why we never title our paintings.
Anyway, use your paint knife and mix up some sewage brown and Cthulhu green. We’re going to make a gutted cathedral-looking thing in the foreground. Add a little paint thinner. It lets the uncannily dreadful depictions of—and middle fingers to—authoritarianism flow right off your bristles. See?
I get letters from people, and they say, Zdzisław I can’t paint. I got a nervous twitch in my hand.
But I tell them just to practice. You draw an affront to sanity or two a day and you’ll be a master in no time.
Let’s give the structure in the center of our hellscape a face in the rubble here. We’ll use the Hell’s boiler room black for this one. Grab a fan brush and make some crisscrossing strokes right here. Let’s make these eyes nice and hollow, like they saw something that burned them right out of a skull that isn’t even really here.
Isn’t that easy? Shoot, we got that rascal in there fast.
Now, let’s take us a script liner brush. And we can go around here and there, just adding a few glyphs and crosses and runes. Wherever feels right to you. This is your world. Everyone else is just dying in it. That’s what makes it interesting.
If you try this painting, take your time, have fun, and take a photograph and send it to us! You might end up on the show.
We’re almost done. Just take your brush, dip it in unholy water, and beat the devil back into it. Now dip it in artery red and sewage brown to get kind of a bone marrowy color And sign your true name.
Perfect.
Until next time, from all of us here, I’d like to wish you horrific painting and madness take you, my friend!
Edward Cody Huddleston was born in New Jersey and raised in Georgia, where he now works as a radio DJ. His writings—especially micropoetry and microfiction—have appeared in more than 100 publications worldwide and won dozens of awards. His debut haiku collection, Wildflowers in a Vase, is available from Red Moon Press. You can visit him online at www.echuddleston.com.
By
Edward Cody Huddleston
Well, hey there, friends! Zdzisław Beksiński here. Today, we’re going to paint something unfathomably dreadful. We’re going deep into your unconscious for this one. But that’s okay. That’s where the magic happens.
Don’t worry. We’ll run the colors, bodily fluids, and restricted chemicals you’ll need across your screen now. Just dip your brush into the artery red here. Mix it with just a bit of mustard gas yellow.
We’re going to start on something—sort of a column that looks like it’s made from desiccated remains. The trick is how the sunlight in the background bleeds, well, into the blood right here.
Now, maybe in our world, there’s a happy little skull. Switch to your filbert brush and add some padded room white. I’m just going to use straight padded room white.
Light, quick strokes. There you go. Add another skull if you want to … because everyone needs a friend. Heck, you might do a pile of skulls, but I think that’s a little too obvious. Remember, the key to art is showing, not telling. That’s why we never title our paintings.
Anyway, use your paint knife and mix up some sewage brown and Cthulhu green. We’re going to make a gutted cathedral-looking thing in the foreground. Add a little paint thinner. It lets the uncannily dreadful depictions of—and middle fingers to—authoritarianism flow right off your bristles. See?
I get letters from people, and they say, Zdzisław I can’t paint. I got a nervous twitch in my hand.
But I tell them just to practice. You draw an affront to sanity or two a day and you’ll be a master in no time.
Let’s give the structure in the center of our hellscape a face in the rubble here. We’ll use the Hell’s boiler room black for this one. Grab a fan brush and make some crisscrossing strokes right here. Let’s make these eyes nice and hollow, like they saw something that burned them right out of a skull that isn’t even really here.
Isn’t that easy? Shoot, we got that rascal in there fast.
Now, let’s take us a script liner brush. And we can go around here and there, just adding a few glyphs and crosses and runes. Wherever feels right to you. This is your world. Everyone else is just dying in it. That’s what makes it interesting.
If you try this painting, take your time, have fun, and take a photograph and send it to us! You might end up on the show.
We’re almost done. Just take your brush, dip it in unholy water, and beat the devil back into it. Now dip it in artery red and sewage brown to get kind of a bone marrowy color And sign your true name.
Perfect.
Until next time, from all of us here, I’d like to wish you horrific painting and madness take you, my friend!
Edward Cody Huddleston was born in New Jersey and raised in Georgia, where he now works as a radio DJ. His writings—especially micropoetry and microfiction—have appeared in more than 100 publications worldwide and won dozens of awards. His debut haiku collection, Wildflowers in a Vase, is available from Red Moon Press. You can visit him online at www.echuddleston.com.
