Mister PicassoHead and His Bucket of Art Parts!

Get your french-fried cubism on with Mr. PicassoHead! Click the post title to access the website, and or click here for my own personal "masterpiece."

I Still Love the Old World

In my eternal quest for WIS images available on the interwebs, I bear witness to what I believe to be the evolutionary progress of the art form. The golden age of WIS has clearly passed. This was an age of airbrushes, an age when evidence of the warm touch of the human hand was still felt, no matter how polished and realistic the pieces may have been. These days---though I must emphasize that it gives me infinite pleasure to see people still pursuing the genre---these days I see more photoshop job WIS than not.

Now, I majored in fine art. I mean, I am a purist. I built my own silkscreens and gleefully inhaled the aroma of linseed oil and turpentine. I wore my charcoal smudge warpaint with pride. It never crossed my mind to pursue digital photoshop whatnot, because...well, I'm a purist snob! And recently, I've reconsidered my thinking. It sure is a hellofalot easier to get what's in your head out and into existence with photoshop than struggling with the many varieties of technical difficulties involved in the old ways. Photoshop is cool, fine, yes. And worth pursuing...But...I still just like the old stuff better.

Green Moon Orcas and Roger Dean

Here we have a uniquely lovely WIS. When I first beheld this piece I was immediately reminded of the work of one of my favorite artists, the super-fantastic visionary Roger Dean. Though I'm nearly positive Dean has never ventured into the realm of WIS art, he is undeniably an influence for countless fantasy artists, likely including the perpetrators of WIS. A defining feature of Dean's works are his deliciously rich techniques of manipulating various inks, watercolors, and enamels. Though his work is highly detailed, it still retains a soft, speckly quality.








There are recurring themes of space, flying creatures (but not whales), and floating objects or land masses in Dean's work.

Bong-Ripper

An inherent difficulty with WIS is the fact that information on details such as medium and date of completion are most often impossible to come by. For example, this particular work appears to be computer-rendered, which would lead me to believe that it is a late-period WIS, although this cannot be confirmed. There is a clusterfuckyness about the disparate elements of the work that set it apart from the more simplistic "whales floating in space" themes of the genre's early period. Why is there a panda? The artist is apparently a big hippie who has also done work for the Grateful Dead and Hot Tuna.

Whales In Space

Welcome!

You have found your way to my little blog: WHALES IN SPACE!!!!

Here you will find the online testament to my inexplicable personal fascination with this oft-overlooked, fucking AWESOME art sub-genre.

Made popular in the late 1980's through such reputedly "low-brow" vehicles as dorm-room posters and those pictures that come with the frame when you buy one, Whales In Space combines elements of nature's majesty with the vast landscapes of our imagination. *wind chimes*


You can help contribute by sending me any fine examples of W.I.S you may happen upon. Let us all delight in the airbrushed universe of amazingness.