Green Infernos – Scorched Earth

As you may know, I’ve been dabbling more in the abstract art realm. Over the last couple of months, I’ve been experimenting with these colorful inferno watercolor paintings.

I started with abstracts in blue, green, and purple. The blue and purple paintings turned out really great. There is a good amount of color contrast within those paintings. However, the green ones felt too flat. They were all too green, which I found to be somewhat boring.

To remedy the situation, I used Procreate to make some mockups of trees on top of the green inferno paintings. I’m delighted with the results! The green reminded me of the aurora borealis, so I leaned into that.

I chose to paint trees that look scorched because it feels like we’re always on fire nowadays. I live in California, which is often literally on fire. But a lot of the country seems to be in flames, both literally and figuratively. I’m unhappy with the way we treat the planet, and I hope that these scorched trees help us to remember to be kind to the only Earth we have.

I love the concept of painting silhouettes on top of the inferno paintings. I’m going to try a few more ideas along those lines. If you have any suggestions, I’d love to hear from you!