TASH

"Tash" by Troy's Work Table. Carport chalking for Friday 23 October 2015.

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Three influences/inspirations: C. S. Lewis, Francisco Goya, and the Fauvists.

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Lewis is the foremost influence, since his character Tash, the anti-Aslan, from The Last Battle (book seven of The Chronicles of Narnia) is what this chalk creature is modeled upon. Vulture-like head. Four arms raised above its head. Although rather than the gaunt, translucent, ephemeral, and soon-to-be-fleeting creature of Lewis's book, this Tash is well-sated by the evil of its adherents.

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A while back, I read in Goya by Robert Hughes that Dali borrowed Saturn's strangely shaped leg in Goya's Saturno devorando a su hijo (Saturn Devouring His Son, 1820-1824) for his own 1936 painting Soft Construction with Boiled Beans (Premonition of a Civil War). So I decided to borrow it as well, although in a closer approximation to Goya than the plastic and elongated rendition that Dali executed. I also tried to capture some of the spirit of Goya's Los desastres de la guerra (The Disasters of War) series of etchings and aquatints, which seems fair for what is the Narnian equivalent of the Antichrist.

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I wanted the colors to be bright blue and purple as though gaudy bruises, highlighted by bright oranges and red for the head, so I borrowed the palette of les Fauves ("the wild beasts") and let my chalk speak.

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My two favorite pieces are small details, but the most satisfying for me. The first is the deadness of Tash's eye, which really speaks to me. The second is the small colored "berries" adorning his crown feathers.

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Some chalk pieces just don't quite work the way I want them to. Some are fine. And some, like this piece, keep calling to me, even after I'm done with them.

I did a preliminary sketch of Tash in pencil and colored pencil on paper. More often than not, I usually like my pencil sketch better than the chalk that follows. But not this time. I think chalk Tash sings to me more richly than pencil Tash.

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View more pictures of "Tash" HERE.