Lmst

DRIVE TIME IN ORBIT CITY (2025)
Acrylic - 7 ½” x 10 ¾”

This began as a paint blot on the board covering my drafting table. The marks suggested an odd spaceship, so I doodled that in with leftover colors. There the sketch remained for months while I was working on other projects. 1/4

https://www.michaelwhelan.com/galleries/2025-leftover-5/

#leftoversandpalettegremlins #originalart #sciencefiction

A traffic directing ship hovers in front of a bank of orange clouds. A tiny figure in the doorway looks out to a woman holding a long staff hovering with her back to the audience. She seems to be crossing from a ramp in the lower left to the droid. Below, an elevated roadway tinted purple sweeps across a futuristic city. Vehicles hover across its length. From a tower on the right edge of the panel, air ships descend like a stream of balloons trailing down.

THE LOST CITY (2017)
Acrylic on Watercolor Board - 14" x 7 ½"

Members of the Miskatonic Antarctic Expedition discover an ancient city while searching for Gedney, missing from the advance camp and the massacre that took place there. 1/2

#fantasy #fantasyart #sff #leftoversandpalettegremlins

Cresting a ridge, two explorers take in the view of an ancient, alien city nestled in an arctic mountain range. Intricate spires rise out of a mist of windblown snow. Between the angled peaks of mountains, the sky radiates aurora-like waves rendered in white and gray-blue.

ELRIC AND THE COLD DRAKE (2018)
Oil on Canvas - 11" x 17"

I had a quantity of the pigment left on my palette while working on an H.P. Lovecraft painting. I fished a canvas scrap out of the wastebasket in our print room and sketched this scene with the leftover Payne’s Grey and white. 1/2

#fantasy #fantasyart #sff #illustration #elric #dragon #leftoversandpalettegremlins

A line of black rock littered with human skulls climbs from the immediate foreground up to the top of a snow covered hill backed by jagged mountain peaks. There Elric stands with an enormous white dragon spreading its wings wide. Ready to strike, its serpentine neck is coiled in an "S" as its jaws part in a hiss. With the drake at his back, Elric stands with windswept hair, dressed in black with the long blade of Stormbringer slung low at waist height. He stares at some threat off panel to the right.

HIGH FLIER (2018)
Acrylic on Illustration Board - 16" x 12"

On a whim, I added the figure to a study for EMPIRE OF GRASS, a Tad Williams cover recently completed at the time.

This was the first installment in the 2018 Leftovers & Palette Gremlins gallery. 1/2

#leftoversandpalettegremlins #imaginativerealism

A young girl with hair tied back in blonde pigtails holds on for dear life as she clings to a white star-shaped balloon. Sweeping rock formations set against cloudless pale skies reach out as she narrowly escapes their sharp feathered tips. The girl is wearing a white tank top and pink shorts. Her feet are bare, floating unsupported and at the mercy of momentum like the long kite tail that trails the pillowy balloon in its exit off panel to the upper left. The far horizon, rendered hazily, tilts at an extreme angle adding to the sense of disorientation, perpendicular to the movement of the rocks and path of the balloon.

CHAINS OF THE SEA (2018)
Acrylic on Canvas - 12" x 16"

A small study for a larger planned painting that never happened. I began working on this at the same time as the cover for Words of Radiance back in 2013. 1/3

#personalvisions #imaginativerealism #leftoversandpalettegremlins

Two weathered concrete pylons rise from tidal waters, which reflect light in a glossy sheen but are shallow enough to show the sand of the shore beneath. A loop of chain, weighed down by a padlock, dangles between pylons. The way around on either side of the pylons is clear, raising a question of what the lock is for. The chain is secured to metal loops anchored on rusty plates at the top of each pylon. Short nubs of rebar extend from the eroded concrete at the top, contrasting the gray sky. A hazy band of sea green defines the horizon.

PATH (2016)
Acrylic on Panel - 12" x 16"

This painting featuring my granddaughter Seren was done for the inaugural Leftovers and Palette Gremlins gallery. Every week I set out to complete a small piece inspired by paint marks or other found patterns. 1/3

#personalvisions #imaginativerealism #leftoversandpalettegremlins

A young girl wearing a blue sundress and white strappy sandals takes a step along a raised grassy path in what appears to be a gently flowing maze. Her hair is drawn back into short pigtails. At her side, she absently holds a daisy as her eyes—which seem to be pressed closed—focus downward. Long, soft shadows fall diagonally, deepening in the winding channels between adjacent tracks. In total, the walkways wind and swirl creating a pattern reminiscent of the folds of the cerebral cortex. Drawing attention to the wider gaps, shallow water reflects in highlights of blue. There are no walls or substantial barriers; it would be easy enough to hop across to another trail.

THUNDERHEAD (2025)

Acrylic - 8” x 11”

There's a small winter themed painting on my work table that I wanted to finish for the holidays but ran out of time. I got frustrated and smeared some of the colors on mat board I was using as a palette. 1/4

https://www.michaelwhelan.com/galleries/2025-leftover-1/

#leftoversandpalettegremlins #sciencefiction #scifi #illustration

Orange lightning flashes from a bank of clouds as a VTOL bomber breaks through the storm front. We get a view from underneath along the belly to the nose of the craft which has pronounced forewings. The aircraft still carries a payload in a pair of bombs mounted under each of the aft wings which tilt back and end with vertical stabilizers. A flight of white stand in contrast to the dark clouds.

A DREAM OF SPRING (2022)
Acrylic - 10 ¼" x 5 ½"

It was still winter when I imagined this vision of springtime in the patterns of paint on my drawing table. I guess you could say she was inspired by my hope for the green to come.

https://www.michaelwhelan.com/galleries/2022-leftover-5/

#fantasy #fantasyart #sff #leftoversandpalettegremlins

STARCASTER (2018)
Acrylic on Palette Paper - 9" x 12"

This one grew out of a splatter of raw umber on a sheet of gray palette paper. 1/2

#sciencefiction #scifi #scifiart #sff #illustration #leftoversandpalettegremlins

TOUCH OF WONDER (2024)
Acrylic on Paper - 12” x 7”

In a recent attempt to clean up my studio, I found a color study of crystals done for RHYTHM OF WAR. 1/3

#leftoversandpalettegremlins #scifi #scifiart #sff

A figure dives out of a spaceship angling down over a massive cubic crystal formation. His tether loops as if free of gravity. In the upper left, a moon hangs against dark sky. The scene is illuminated by the glow of the yellow-orange crystals. Lower in the formation colors shift to pink and then purple with the cubes varying greatly in size.

YOUR RIDE IS HERE (2024)

Acrylic on Paper, 13” x 8 ¼”

As I take afternoon walks, I relish the reds, golds, and greens all around me. It’s no accident to see the colors of autumn represented on my palette.

https://www.michaelwhelan.com/galleries/2024-leftover-4/

1/4

#leftoversandpalettegremlins #horror #originalart

A worm's eye view of the grim reaper standing atop a large mushroom. Clad in a brown hooded robe, his form contrasts the abstract yellow background that resulted from a paint pour. The long wooden haft of his scythe rests on his shoulder with blade trailing behind him. The butt of his signature instrument rests on the white mushroom cap. Hidden by the hood of his cloak, his face falls in shadow offering only the glow of his eyes and a row of teeth, but his hands rest on the scythe revealing purple skin as he caresses the wooden shaft.

NEITHER A BOY NOR A BOY-SIZED SPIDER (2022)
Acrylic on Canvas - 11" x 14"

At an exhibition some years ago, Jordu Schell and I were comparing notes on work that truly made us shudder. Jordu is a master VFX artist and sculptor who has a long history in the "horror" business. I wondered if there were things that really scared him.1/5

#horror #horrorart #mordred #darktower #stephenking #leftoversandpalettegremlins

Mordred is portrayed mid-transformation, half-spider but still human in his lower extremities. The brown cloth he wears is in tatters as spider limbs sprout from the sides of his torso. Each is furry, multi-jointed, and ends with a curving point. Mordred's head is pale green and football-shaped with bulging yellow eyes set on the side focused on a rook landing with wings spread on one his extended claws. Boyishly thin black hair tops the curve of his head. His mouth is wide exposing pointed teeth. He stands on an uneven pile of stone blocks with the high walls of a castle rising behind him and a tower rendered in silhouette.

TURN LEFT AT TETHYS (2024)
Acrylic - 9" x 5 ½"

Palette gremlins live at the intersection of accident and imagination. Here is one in the truest sense—a sketch that began as a brush mark on palette paper. The initial prompt led me to the moons of Saturn for this whimsical exchange. 1/3

#leftoversandpalettegremlins #sciencefiction #scifi #scifiart #originalart

Holding a mining pick in his hand, an astronaut in spacesuit looks up at an alien who points directions. It sits with knees up on a black rock formation.Saturn with its massive rings hovers in the sky above intersected by a wavy spire of rock.

CHAOS ABIDES (2024)

Acrylic - 13” x 5 ½”

The prompt for this came while working on concepts for WIND AND TRUTH earlier this year. 1/3

https://www.michaelwhelan.com/galleries/2024-leftover-1/

#fantasy #fantasyart #elric #leftoversandpalettegremlins #stormbringer #originalart

Elric kneels with his elbow propped on a rock formation that climbs overhead. He holds Stormbringer by the grip with tip planted at the heart of the chaos star on a swatch of cloth that lies on the ground before him. The symbol is made of 8 arrows spreading from a red circle to point in all directions. Behind Elric, bats glide in flight. In the background distance, an ancient tower tilts inward.

ELRIC AND THE COLD DRAKE (2018)
Oil on Canvas - 11" x 17"

With Payne's Grey and white left on my palette while working on an HP Lovecraft painting, I sketched this scene. 1/3

#fantasy #fantasyart #sff #illustration #elric #dragon #leftoversandpalettegremlins

TRIPOD WALKER (2016)
Acrylic on Watercolor Paper - 19" x 13"

Painted on the back of a misprinted Dark Tower image I was using as a mixing palette of mostly white, yellow ocher, and raw umber. The print was on such a fine grade of heavyweight watercolor paper that I was loathe to throw it away. 1/4

#leftoversandpalettegremlins #horror #stephenking