Wow Wee! Ride Me Sally, Ride!

Well hello again everyone. During this past semester there were some assignments that I really enjoyed working on. Unfortunately, some assignments were treated and created to make my teachers happy. The good stuff I wanted to make wasn't really produced this year. One interesting project dealt with sleep paralysis. For those of you who don't know what sleep paralysis is:

"...a common condition characterized by transient partial or total paralysis of skeletal muscles and areflexia that occurs upon awakening from sleep or less often while falling asleep. Stimuli such as touch or sound may terminate the episode, which usually has a duration of seconds to minutes. This condition may occur in normal subjects or be associated with narcolepsy, cataplexy, and hypnagogic hallucinations."

Thank you, Wikipedia, for clearing that up.

The following images are the original sketches for the project:

The first sketch was drawn straight out of my head with no reference to help me out with anatomy of the nude woman and horse head. Although there are some mistakes with the anatomy, there is an energy to the piece...something that got lost when I began using reference for the female body as seen in the second image.

Sleep Paralysis Rough Sketch by Alex Ariza 2008

Drawing depicting sleep paralysis featuring a nude woman with a horse head riding a sleeping man in cowgirl position.

Sleep Paralysis More Refined Sketch - Alex Ariza 2008

I had put a lot of time into the final since this was the first assignment of the year, and I wanted to leave a good impression with my professor. It came out decent looking, but, as I said before, it lacks a certain energy I was going for. Also, it lacks any real depth or concept behind it. All I came up with was a guy having a dream about banging some hot chick and it just so happens to have turned into horse headed lady. Big whoop.

Sleep Paralysis Acrylic Paint on Watercolor Paper 8.5 x 22 in. 2008