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INTANGIBLES: DREAM AND DISILLUSION (1989)
Acrylic on Canvas - 24" X 48"

When I got a call about a book project, an Arthur C. Clarke short story collection titled Tales from Planet Earth, I told the client that I had already set aside the month to work on a personal project. 1/5

#personalvisions #imaginativerealism #fineart #sciencefiction #scifi #scifiart #arthurcclarke

A primitive, bearded man crouches naked on the sand as white cresting waves roll in to gently lap the shore. With palm up, he reaches out toward a triangular glass pyramid surrounded by a hazy ring of light. The prism is one of many objects that swirl in the air to form a Fibonacci curve around him. The symbols include an hourglass, a trilobite fossil, an egg, a glass heart, a broken ladder, and an owl skull. Orange rock forms a natural bridge behind him. Through its arch, the luminous moon hangs low in the sky.
#scifi #ScienceFiction #scifiart #fineart #ArthurCClarke #imaginativerealism #personalvisions
in reply to Michael Whelan

Michael Whelan
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Michael Whelan
• •
He was interested in seeing if the painting could be made to work as a cover, and indeed it all worked out. The only glitch was a little submarine/spaceship object that had to be included. It was needed to make the painting work as the book cover, but I wanted to keep the egg in the painting. 2/5
Preliminary sketch of INTANGIBLES featuring the same primitive man crouching on the shore, but the arrangement of symbols is different and tree branches jut out of the sand. A comet arches overhead arcing down toward the full moon hovering on the horizon.
in reply to Michael Whelan

Michael Whelan
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Michael Whelan
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My answer was to paint the spacecraft on removable tape. When I got the painting back, I peeled off the ship and restored the piece to its intended state. In the interim, the book company decided that their transparencies weren't good enough. 3/5
Altered version of INTANGIBLES with a spaceship in the place of the egg so it could be used for the book cover illustration.
in reply to Michael Whelan

Michael Whelan
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Michael Whelan
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I sent the art to them to reshoot, and the next day someone called me up to say, "Where's the ship? It seems to have turned into an egg!" 4/5
Background detail from INTANGIBLES featuring an arch of orange rock on a smooth sandy beach symbols float in the air from a hand mirror, inflatable boat with oars, a loose coil of rope, an owl skull, and a broken ladder.
Figure detail from INTANGIBLE featuring a man crouching on the shore with one hand resting on his knee and the other palm up reaching for a triangular glass pyramid. He is naked with uncombed brown hair and beard. His snub nose, close set eyes, and pronounced jaw suggest a step back in evolution. Other symbols swirl around him in a Fibonacci curve, including an hourglass, a trilobite fossil, an egg, a tilted Erlenmeyer flask, a conch shell, a red glass heart, a spherical space probe, and the planet earth. Behind him, waves roll frothy onto the shore.
in reply to Michael Whelan

Michael Whelan
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Michael Whelan
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Cover illustration for TALES FROM PLANET EARTH by Arthur C. Clarke (Bantam Spectra) 5/5

michaelwhelan.com/galleries/in…

Book cover for TALES FROM PLANET EARTH by Arthur C. Clarke, published by Bantam Spectra

INTANGIBLES

The best of both worlds. In 1989, I had set aside a month to do a painting for myself when I got a call about doing the cover for an Arthur C. Clarke short story collection. I was able to use the p…
The Art of Michael Whelan
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