Emergent Passageways

Note: This piece was originally titled Gaia. The title was updated to reflect a clearer understanding of the work.

Emergent Passageways marks the start of a new life direction for me. I think of it as a partner piece to Terminal Order, and just as that work represents the closing of a life chapter, this one points to new possibilities. This work also played an important role in the evolution of my art, as I was seeking to reestablish creative rhythm after a period of relative inactivity.

I've previously written about the pencil and ink processes for this art. Here, I'll share more about the inspiration behind the piece, and then break down the process behind the color work.

The Inspiration for Emergent Passageways

Shortly before beginning this piece, I experienced a moment of significant discomfort with my life circumstances. Those feelings provided the motivation for rapid changes in my life (reflected in the artwork for Terminal Order) and although some of those shifts were difficult, they cleared space for new ideas and renewed forward momentum.

Emergent Passageways reflects a feeling of optimism at the start of a new era in life, and it carries the sense of peaceful resolve I was feeling at the time.

There are a handful of key symbolic elements I want to touch on here. First, the hands of the woman's lower arms form a yoni mudra – a symbol of the womb that is meant to induce a state of calm and tranquility for the person making it. The four arms also reference the Hindu goddess Kali, who is both a protector and a destroyer of evil forces.

The infants in the pods surrounding her symbolize new possibilities, each one protected and carefully suspended until it is ready to emerge into the world.

Machinery in my art often represents confinement or circumstances that feel beyond my control. The many tubes, wires, and apparatuses attached to the babies' pods indicate the challenging conditions I was emerging from – a kind of transition period in which new life is forming, but not yet free to exist on its own terms.

The factory silhouette in the background is also significant for me. As a child, I experienced powerful emotions near industrial areas, and especially oil refineries. In those moments, reality seemed to bend at the edges, and I felt as though I could almost see through the physical world into another life.

These environments seemed imposing, cold, and antagonistic to organic life. On an emotional level, my childhood self associated them with a sort of spiritual death, and that association followed me into adulthood and into my art.

Here, the factory backdrop marks an unmistakable ending to the life I'd been living.

The Process for Emergent Passageways

Color work on Emergent Passageways began by lassoing out each section in Photoshop and establishing the "flat" colors – solid base colors applied before any shading or highlights. From there, I adjusted each color until the palette felt cohesive.

I initially envisioned Emergent Passageways entirely in purples and blues, but once the color separations were complete, the piece began asking for something different.

Here's a look at the final color palette before any rendering work.

From there, I carefully added highlights and shadows, working on each element in isolation before moving on to the next. As with the color work on the two pieces that preceded this one – Bound in the Animus and Terminal Order – many elements first received a subtle color gradient. I then lassoed specific areas for highlights and shadows and used a combination of brushes, bucket fills, and the hue/saturation adjustments in Photoshop to refine brightness and color temperature.

Final touches included adding color to the line art and selectively lightening in it to create highlights and atmospheric perspective. One area where this was especially important was the glass of the babies' pods, where I shifted the line color toward an orange-brown tone to suggest the effect of glass and liquid.

I'm still relatively new to coloring this type of surrealist work, and this process was challenging at times. With the benefit of hindsight, though, I can see how much I learned here – lessons I've carried forward into later work. Emergent Passageways marks a transition for me, both in life and in my art, and it's a moment I know I'll continue to reflect on.

Thanks for spending some time with this one.

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I post process videos, sketches, and behind-the-scenes work as new pieces take shape. If you'd like to see the next stages of this world as it's built, you can find me here:

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