THE WORLD DREAM BANK: TOPIC: dream paintings

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Dream Paintings

Dream painters should ponder this rule of thumb used by science fiction and fantasy writers: "The more outrageous the premise of a story, the plainer the style should be, so style and content don't compete." I think it's true of dream-art too. My own dream-paintings are pretty straightforward stylistically--given the limits of my skills.

Most dream painters here used acrylic. It may be a need for immediacy. When you wake with a vision, spending three days on it in oil just seems harder than to get it all down that morning in acrylic, even if it's a little rougher.

When I've needed oil effects I've faked it with acrylic, either by blending really fast before it dries (fingers work better than brushes), or by adding a SMALL drop of dish soap to the water used for thinning--that slows the drying of acrylic paint from minutes to hours, if not the days you get with oil. Worth trying.

RELATED TOPICS: watercolor and silk-dyeing - pencil and charcoal - pure digital art - ink - felt pen and colored inks - photocollages and altered photos - comics - posters and picture-poems - sculpture - See also the full INDEX OF SUBJECTS.

The World Dream Bank has 1500 dreams and dream images plus 500 other pages on dreamwork and shamanism, creativity, genius, art, surrealism and fantasy. Unless otherwise noted, all material copyright Chris Wayan, 2001-2006.

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	AFTER BIRTH: by Wayan, 2004/9/29, astral acrylic painting Never mind what happens after death! What if, before we were born, we were spirits with no idea what happens after birth?...
	THE AIR BURUNDI PAINTINGS: by Wayan; 210K, 7 illus., 2007/1/20, a dream of art and courage Weird paintings cover a hill town in Africa, demanding I paint them when I wake. Paintings on courage, flight... and defying tradition.
	AMERICAN TANKA: by Wayan; 290K, eight images, 1995; acrylic on 30" disk, telling a 1989/7/26 dream. I dreamed I circumnavigated the entire Buddhist wheel of existence in a single night...
	ANGELUNE: by Wayan; 364 x 481, 1999. Acrylic painting The joyful animal-angel I feel myself to be in my happiest dreams.
	ARBORETUM CAT: by Wayan; acrylic nondream landscape, 1999/4/14. Golden Gate Park's arboretum, in San Francisco, is home to feral cats, skunks, raccoons, people...
	ARCH: by Wayan; 120K, dreamed 1998/8/10, painted 1999, acrylic on wood . I dreamed that as a kid I found two girls making love in the bushes, awakening my own sexual orientation. Later, I saw the bigger picture, which wasn't about sex at all... CAUTION: SEX
	ARENNA, FREED: by Wayan; 130K, 1991/11/6, a pastlife/flying/freedom dream. I learn to fly from Arenna the moon-girl and Crest the dragon, in the House of Deep Memory...
	ASK ME ANYTHING: by Wayan; 1975/1/31, a backstage dream. It was a dark and stormy night. I was lost, till I stumbled on God in her underground control room...
	BANANA MOON: by Wayan; 149K total: painting of dream figures, 1998, acrylic on wood, 36 x 48" My figure-painting class here in San Francisco has a diverse student body, but not THIS diverse... CAUTION: NUDITY
	THE BIOSPHERE VARIATIONS: by Wayan; 15 MB, 2004-6, a set of sculpture-photo-drawing-travelog-webmazes: Tour beautiful, bizarre worlds most exobiologists would write off as hopeless for life, and meet the natives... CAUTION: SEXY ALIENS, WEIRD CUSTOMS, EVOLUTION
	BLUE SKIES: by Georganna Malloff; 1980?, painting of a slightly predictive dream. I dreamed of a bear playing a cello concert. The next day at a local concert I was surprised to see that the cellist...
	BORN IN A CAVE: by Jenny Badger Sultan; 2007/4/20 to 2007/8/9, a painted series of rite-of-passage dreams. I keep dreaming of awkward but successful transitions into new life, and paint them all in one landscape...
	BRIGHT NICHES IN THE CASTLE WALL: by Jenny Badger Sultan; summer 2003. A painting of a series of dreams. Dreams warning of mania and paralyzing shame alternate with calm dreams of life and growth...
	CELEBRATE BOTH: by Henry Sultan, 2005/6/26, a painting that blends two dreams At a snake-weaving party I flirt with my anima, who tells me how the cake fell off the roof. I think “At last we’re really connecting!”...
	CHRYSALIS: by Wayan; 1999 acrylic painting of two dreams, 1997/10/6 and 1997/11/8. Ballooning over Middle Earth with a metamorphosing butterfly-girl, we drift into forbidden territory:
	THE CITY, NOT LONG AFTER: by Wayan; 1998/4/22-30, acrylic cityscape of our flooded future. What my home town will become, if you fools keep burning gas and spewing CO2 in the air...
	CLIMB DOWN THE PINNACLES: by Jenny Badger Sultan, l995/12/24, a surreal dream and painting Decision by decision, we made our way down immense rock crags. Below, I had to put out a deadly fire, a fire as solid as wood or stone, with a white staff. What am I really trying to calm?
	CLOSE THE GATE: by Emily Joy; 2004/11/19, a dream of decision. My foxy lover teases and tempts, but I can't let him into the patio for fear he'll hurt the rabbits… CAUTION: UNFUNNY BUNNY PUNS
	THE COIL: by Wayan; 1999-2000. Model for a mad instrument that might just work. A spiral dream-instrument I'm building, that's easier to play than a piano or guitar, and a lot snakier...
	THE COMING DARK: by Jenny Badger Sultan, 2002/3/2; dream-paintings about one disaster averted, and another... not. I climb down from a desert cliff before night strands me; but reckless adolescent games in town lead to a crash...
	DARE TO BE FAT!: by Wayan; spinoff picture from a 1997/8/20 dream. I was an anorexic fox-girl, till this phrase galvanized me. Now I pump iron and eat what I like, and...
	DATE GHOST: by Wayan; dreamed 1985? (exact date uncertain); acrylic. I tried to date a nice young butterfly but was stopped by a monster who was... my own wings? CAUTION: UNDERAGE BUG
	DON'T PANIC: by Wayan; 1993. Nondream self-portrait, watercolor, 14 x 17". A self-portrait, or it was going to be, till the songbird and fish upstaged me...
	THE DREAM: by Henri Rousseau; 1910, a (collaborative?) dream painting Rousseau's famous painting of a woman who falls asleep on a sofa and finds herself in a glorious jungle may just be a real dream... CAUTION: NUDITY, SLACKING
	THE DREAMSUIT: by Wayan; 1992/7/12, a dream on unconscious programming. An experimental helmet knocks me out. I'm groggy, miserable, till I learn what it did to others...
	DRIVER'S TEST: by Wayan; 1984/1/8, an illustrated Kafkan dreamtale. It's not easy to get a California driver's license, ever since the Dept. of Motor Vehicles went Jungian...
	ELEGANTE (ELLE EST GAUNTE): by Wayan; 1983, nondream body-image painting. Every year, as Americans get fatter, the fashion gets thinner (and I look more normal)...
	EMOTIONAL PALETTE: by Wayan; 2000/3/22, an indescribable dream. My spirit-wife and I spend our last evening together painting. Not with colors--with emotions...
	ELF EYE: by Wayan; 2002/5/20, dream figure in acrylic on wood I like the idea that a painting's a window into a world. That the window opens both ways. That eyes in paintings may be watching us.
	AN ELK SHOWED ME A SIGN OF PEACE: by Georganna Malloff; 1985?, painting of a vision In the Rockies, in winter, I was freezing until I found hot springs. In the steam rising, I saw a vision of an elk...
	FIGURE DRAWING: REDHEAD SITS IN DIAMOND: by Wayan; 630 x 630, 1999/5/12 A sophisticated composition for a sophisticated model. Or at least seasick... CAUTION: NUDITY, NAUSEA...
	FIGURE DRAWING: BIG SQUARE STUDIO: by Wayan; May 1999; acrylic sketch tweaked on disk In life drawing class, the model built a sort of green island/nest in the sea of grubby students... CAUTION: MILD NUDITY
	FISHERGIRL IN WATERCOLOR; OVAL: by Wayan; 1996, watercolor of a 1996/7/15 dream scene. A watercolor portrait of Leaf and me on our boat in the lost city, from the dream FISHERGIRL... CAUTION: TRIBAL NUDITY
	FLUID DREAM CONNECTIONS: by Jenny Badger Sultan; 2003/11/8 and 2007/3/14; linked dreams of pods A pod of whales in the sky and a circle of children dressed like seed-pods both beg me to interpret them...
	FLAMINGOS: by Wayan; 1998; nondream acrylic, 20 x 30". Part an experiment in wild textures, part a "Where's Waldo" game to see if you'd notice my self-portrait...
	FLUID DREAM CONNECTIONS: by Jenny Badger Sultan; 2003/11/8 and 2007/3/14; linked dreams of pods A pod of whales in the sky and a circle of children dressed like seed-pods both beg me to interpret them...
	FOUR-ARMED SINGER: by Wayan; 1996/5/16; a dream of baring your soul . In our mutant future, a lovely horse-tailed four-armed girl sings her heart out--as clubgoers ignore her... CAUTION: NUDE CABARET
	FOX-SHEPHERDESS AND RAVEN: by Wayan; 1998, wet-on-wet acrylic of daydream. I don't know if the fox-shepherdess ate all her sheep, or if she herded invisible and quite different things...
	THE HAND THAT WAKES: by Wayan; 1997; acrylic study of what makes us forget dreams. I was painting to a sad scary song by Laurie Anderson that goes "This is the hand... the hand that takes..."
	HEADEGG (Black-Eyed Bird of Pain): by Wayan; 1983/10/24; acrylic painting of a headache-trance. I was cartooning with a headache. It took over and started drawing for me...
	HOMAGE TO CAMILLE: by Wayan, spring 2003. Portrait of a half an anima A portrait of my dream-friend Silky, using a technique learned from artist Camille Porter.
	KARMA AND HER SISTERS: by Emily Joy; 2006/12/27, a happy sexy flying dream that turned tragic. One boring lonely day, I meet a cute teenage bunny who wants to play with me! But half an hour later… CAUTION: LANGUAGE, INTERSPECIES FLIRTING, AND LOSS
	LEAN ON ME: by Wayan; 120K; 1987, 1992. Recurring dream image.. This couple keeps appearing in my dreams--as equals, as mount and rider, as friends, as enemies, as lovers... CAUTION: NUDITY
	LET ILLNESS GO: by Wayan; 1999. Acrylic/digital painting of a meditation not a dream. Illness is such a handy excuse when you need solitude, care, rest, or just time to think... but...
	LET'S IMPOSE: by Wayan; 1992. Nondream digital painting. Engineers! How they do love to impose clean lines on our messy world...
	LILIES, DREAMER, FOX: by Wayan; 1998, acrylic on 46" plywood disk, life study. She didn't want to be there. She closed her eyes and went elsewhere. So I painted where she went... CAUTION: NUDITY
	MANDALA DURING A TIME OF WAR AND DISINTEGRATION: by Jenny Badger Sultan; Jan-Feb 2003, painting of a dream-series My dreams were troubled by war. So I painted them in concentric rings--lotus, fire, children, animals, and nightmares...
	MANDALA OF THE EIGHT DREAMERS: by Jenny Badger Sultan; 2007/9/16, painting of a group's dreams Our dream-group's dreams had a lot of imagery in common: circles, groups, meditation. I fused them into this piece...
	THE MER BUILDING: by Wayan; 145K, 5 illus., 2001/2/23, a dream of a double life. I’m a puma with a night job as a cellist. But my day job with The Architectives is the bizarre one...
	MERMAID, MARE, AND SEA-STAR: by Wayan; 1983; daydream of sea-love I was a mermaid summoning a great storm to carry my love to me--and my love was a red sea-mare...
	THE MERMAID TOW: by Wayan; 1994/2/17, a rescue-fantasy dream. I rescue some drowning kids by turning into a mermaid, but towing one girl has an unexpected effect...
	NEST, EGGS AND LEGS: by Jenny Badger Sultan; l993/9/7, painting of a comic/transcendent dream Two friends send energy through me, transforming me. Now that my legs are detachable, I can sit comfortably on my eggs...
	NEUTRALITY'S ROOMMATE: by Emily Joy; 2007/4/19, a spooky dream. At our commune's new house, pandemonium breaks out when our matriarch meets a spook. Can we live together in peace?
	NIGHT FLIGHT: by Catherine as told to Wayan; 1985, a flying transformation dream.. My friend Catherine dreamed she was a flying mare with golden hooves. But in real life, she lost them...
	OMELET BEACH: by Wayan; 2007/1/15, a dream on how things look through your third eye An alien beach scene--as seen through eyes that see bodies’ energy fields more than surface forms...
	OPEN THE DOOR!: by Wayan; April 2002, acrylic bas-relief of waking fantasy. I salvaged a door. When I painted it, a fox-woman wanted to open it and get out... CAUTION: FURRY NUDITY
	PEGGY’S CAKE: by Jenny Badger Sultan; l998/10/26 , a nightmare plus surrealist painting. At a party I meet a friend I thought was dead. She’s become a small talking rabbit made of cake, and I... CAUTION: UGH
	I DREAMED MY PILLS WERE TAKING ME: by Wayan; 2004/3/13, a dirty lie. A dream that'd explain why I quit taking Western medicines--(and why haven't you?) Only I didn't dream it. Just lived it.
	PORTRAIT OF LADY DRACANTHRA: by Wayan; 100K, mid-2001? Acrylic dream painting. Among the family portraits in the hall of my ancestors was this one of a formidable old... woman, I guess.
	PURR: by Wayan; 650 x 500, 1982, 11x14", acrylic watercolor of a dream. A dream about our family's black cat Persephone, who had to make a decision...
	RAPID TRANSIT: by Wayan; 1999, acrylic watercolor, 14x17", nondream trance painting. I was just sitting, minding my own business when these golden wedge-birds divebombed me...
	RAZI AND THE HOLY WINO OF SHASTA: by Wayan; 270K, 16 illus., 1994/9/1, a redemptive dream 20,000 years from now, a deer-harpist named Razi finds the Holy Wino's not quite the ruin he seems... CAUTION: BAD PENGUINS, DEER NUDITY, RUDE DRUNK
	RED OCHRE, CLEAR LIGHT: by Jenny Badger Sultan; 2003/5/1?; a painting that blends two red-rock dreams Mt Everest is snowfree and red; and next I get to color sandstone caves red with ochre. That red feels full of energy...
	REST TOO: by Wayan; 1999. Acrylic on 12" LP; a life-sketch with a lesson. The mysterious glyphs above the model's head are dream-language, warning me to... CAUTION: NUDITY
	REVOLUTION IS MESSY: by Emily Joy; 2006/4/26, a political dream When whites invade, two shapeshifting Native American cubs resist architecturally...
	THE ROCKS OF EDEN: by Wayan; 1982-3; painting-poem, summing up a life-phase, yet not a dream. A proud angry picture-poem during a hard time, when great gifts flowed through my hands...
	THE SKULLS AND CORN: by Jenny Badger Sultan; 1989/1/10, painting of an initiatory dream. I'm shown corn plants growing from skulls, and it seems like I must plant some skull-corn myself...
	SO TIRED OF MY BONES: by Wayan; 1999. Ink painted on with cardboard wedges, acrylic wash. In my drawing class it was antlers and bones and skulls, death death death till I was tired of MY bones...
	SPLASH!: by Wayan; acrylic, 12" triangle, late 2002; dream painting. While I study how humans went extinct, my daughter happily splashes in the sea...
	SQUIGGLE BIRD: by Wayan; 480 x 640, 1997. Just an abstract birdlike acrylic squiggle I liked. Sorry, no story...
	TELEPATH TREES: by Wayan; 125K, 1993/9/11, a how-the-other-half-lives dream. Edward Abbey shows me a secret grove of telepath trees. That night, they meet me in my dreams...
	THE THIEF OF DREAMS: by Wayan; 200K, an illustrated dream-play, 1996/11/29. I was a mermaid trying to find Count Coyote's stolen dreams, so I could marry my human girlfriend... CAUTION: GAY MARRIAGE, ANTI-FUNDAMENTALISM
	THIRTEEN PEACE SIGNS IN A TIME OF WAR: by Wayan; early 2002, acrylic sgraffito on wood. The animal goddess of peace, stubbornly raising her sign, my sign, as you all slide into your nice holy war...
	THREE HORSE MARSH: by Wayan; 1983, 71K. Acrylic triptych, each panel 18 x 24", group ca. 2x5' Dream-inspired landscape with herons and wild horses in a vaguely Japanese style...
	THE TUBA MAN: by Wayan; 1982/7/8, a career-advice dream. Tuba Man plays from the top of a tower, even when Loveless Man opens fire; for music is life to him...
	THE 1200-STEP PROGRAM: by Wayan; 1987/12/17, an illustrated dreamtale. I'm climbing a tower, as my dad, Apollo, drunk, throws bottles at me from the top, breaking bones... CAUTION: DENIAL ABOUT ALCOHOLISM
	RED-TAILED UNICORN: by Wayan; 1971?, a childhood icon in acrylic. One of my first tries with paint--part Tibetan, part medieval, part hippie, part Navaho...
	UNICORN ROUND: by Wayan; 2000/9/18, nondream; acrylic on a vinyl record. Yellow fireflies circling round the horn of a reclining red unicorn, in the evening...
	UTOPIA: by Wayan; 37 p, 3.9 MB, 2007/5/9, a painted essay on... wishes? An improvised painting-series exploring my obsession for Utopia--and your deafening silence... CAUTION: IDEAS, FURRY NUDITY, THAT GOSH-DARN MODERN ABSTRACT ART
	THE VEGETABLES OF SHADOW: by Wayan; 125K, 1999. Nondream surrealist art technique. Make silhouettes of your beloved vegetables; then listen to the spaces between... CAUTION: LEWD SQUASH
	WATERFALL: by Wayan; 1986, ink blown up via Xerox, with acrylic wash; nondream; nondream. A stylized waterfall, sort of a distillation of all those childhood summers camping in Yosemite...
	WHO KNOWS WHO'S YOUR MATE? 52K, mid-1980s, acrylic on blown-up ink sketch; a nondream picture-poem. Share? And who? And WHAT? Who knows who's your mate... and who's NOT?
	WHO, ME?: by Wayan; 2002. Acrylic of dream figure. Some shy folks don't even know they're dragons....