Sketch Dump – Halos

Thought you guys might enjoy a sneak peek into things I’m working on plus art!

This week, the topic of my project is the halo. Halo comes from the Latin halōs or nimbus, meaning cloud, round, circle, sun, and moon. While the Greek origination meant threshing floor. In modern language, it has evolved to interchangeably act as both a verb and a noun, meaning to surround, or to give an atmosphere of sanctity, alongside other various meteorological implications.

As for art, the representations of halos seem endless in variety, from the solid metallic rings in medieval paintings to the more subtle implied halos formed by light in modern works. In exploring this topic, I’ve come to realize that halos are far more than the stereotypical golden ring that comes standard issue with harp. One can even go as far as to examine the ornate decorations of Buddhist mandalas for halo inspiration. Many divine beings are surrounded by a decorative accent, or halo, across the art of many cultures.

And now the promised art!

This first sketch is a combination of spot illustrations of various types of halos, from the implied to the pattern-inspired barbed wire one. The star halo you see was inspired by art nouveau, which was itself inspired similarly by religious imagery depicting the Lady of the Apocalypse, who was symbolized by the figure of Mary crowned by 12 stars. As you can see, the possibilities for halos are limited only by our imagination!

Next is a little painting I’ll be working on to illustrate how to create a halo from radiating lines. She was really only meant to be a minor character illustrated for this purpose, but I’ve fallen in love with her attitude.

My musical inspiration for this topic was Noose by A Perfect Circle. Some inspirational lyrics for you. (I’m morbid, I know):

With heaven’s help
You’ve cast your demons out
And not to pull your halo down
Around your neck and tug you off your cloud
But I’m more than just a little curious
How you’re plannin’ to go about makin’ your amends
To the dead

Stay tuned for the next post where I’ll have a few more random factoids and painting progress to show! I hope you have enjoyed this interlude of artistic meandering.

PS
I find it funny that the scientific definition of ‘halo’ as a prefix stands for salt or sea. It really mixes up the mental images for a halo in a weird way!

5 comments

  1. sonettie says:

    Good choice of musical inspirational-ness.
    That song is what spawned my digi work ‘Halo’ lol 🙂

    I’m also glad to see someone else looking into the word Halo and its backgrounds/meanings.

    I love the sketches and the painting in Prog! <3

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