"Apotheosis of Adam" is a confirmation of the wild imagination of some of my clients. The fellow (Adam) who commissioned this piece, requested to be portrayed as a beast-mastering rogue; wrestling a bear, stepping on a boar, with an eagle on his arm, as a volcano erupted in the background. Needless to say, I had a lot of fun with this one.
Behold, the progression of "Apotheosis of Adam" from start to finish:
...and of course I had to have images of Adam's face to create a proper likeness. So, my good-humored patron sent me majestic photos of himself strangling a pillow, in lieu of a grizzly bear...
"Apotheosis of Adam"
(28" x 22" oil on canvas, May 2015)
Next, I worked on sketching out Adam's "vision":
Here are some of the reference photos I dug up
to help me bring Adam's vision to life: