Dreamscapes

I quite often have dreams which are just striking images.  Irritatingly often, come dawn, they have slipped my mind.  Only two have I managed to hold onto long enough to get the down on paper. The pictures on the left are all rendition of one of them, a sort of hourglass shaped pink structure, supported by a strut over a red background.

I rendered it first in pastel (top left) and was very satisfied with the result. The smeared grain of the pastel captured quite a good ethereal quality, but I wanted to see what it would look like in different media. 

Next came charcoal.  It has a similar feel and texture to the pastel but the stark black and white, with shades of grey produces quite an evocative result, quite bony like a portion of an x-ray.

Watercolour formed my penultimate attempt.  I don’t think it works in this form, it lacks substance or verve and seems clunky.  Somehow there is not enough contrast and the spectral quality of the first two, which I like, is lost.

I was hoping that oils, in which I did the final picture (bottom right) would produce a translucent effect which would be good.  I suspect if I had a different medium it might.  As it dried it grew on me but I was never completely satisfied.  Had a gone the full Rothko with strange media and extracts of egg it might have worked but this is not something I’m very interested in doing (or frankly have the skill to pull off).
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My initial view the pastel was the best, however having view them all in composing this post it is the charcoal that I am most drawn to.  Often I think, ideas done in a different way to that which you originally envisaged, produce striking results.