Greg Simkins has used his artistic skill and his highly evolved imagination to hide his graffiti nickname “CRAOLA” in this painting, called “Let the outside in”. Can you spot the letters “C, R, A, O, L, A”? (See the end of this article for clues)
Greg “Craola” Simkins is a surrealist artist who has developed a unique style of caricaturisation based on the way that he used to stylise his graffiti characters. His acrylic paintings are exquisite, filled with recurring themes and characters such as creatures emerging from other creatures, serpentine animals with red and white stripes, orca whales that fly and bizarre black characters that are neither human nor animal. Always, there is a balance between hopes and nightmares in Simkin’s art works, depicted by the unsettling beauty of his scenes.
If you are an artist yourself, you can learn a thing or two from watching Greg Simkin’s timelapse videos on YouTube. For example, at 44:35 in this video, he starts to work on a bird emerging from a shield. He paints the background around the bird, sometimes allowing the background to overlap the outlines of the bird. Once the acrylic paint has dried, he re-draws the outlines of the bird and then starts to fill the bird with layers of color. With each layer of paint he adds more depth and more detail to the bird, finishing with its glossy, mesmeric eye. You can watch more videos by Greg Simkins on his YouTube channel, or see more of his art works here on Mayhem and Muse in the article, The Art of Greg “Craola” Simkins
CLUES:
The “C” is the building block of his nickname
The “R” is hiding somewhere fishy
The first “A” lives in owl time
The “O” is being sent and received
The “L” will be read first
The last “A” is moth-eaten
