Acrylic paint, bristol, cardboard, wire, 16x20
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I’ve loved the concept of the Rainbow Caverns from Disneyland’s extinct Mine Train Through Nature’s Wonderland for a long time, and when an assignment called for recreating the color wheel I immediately thought of the lush black-lit fountains of the experience.

I began by creating a digital mock-up of the piece on Procreate, taking stylistic inspiration from an original attraction poster for the ride. I then used the illustration to determine how many cut pieces of paper I would need when translating the piece to full scale.

I cut and painted the pieces, taking care to color match all 12 colors to the wheel as best I could. The pieces were adhered to the black backing with cardboard to create gradual depth toward the bottom of the fountain. Wire was bent into stalagmites and then painted white to appear as line work over the fountains.

This piece presented many challenges, but turned out to be a great dimensional tribute to my favorite colorful cavern!

-JA