Creating The Metamorphic Life of Davy Jones

From First Sketch to Three-Canvas Bowie Triptych

The Metamorphic Life of Davy Jones began in November 2012 and grew into three interconnected canvases combining oil painting, stained glass, metalwork and sculptural elements.

But before any of that came the research.

I immersed myself in David Bowie's life, filling pages with notes, sketches and ideas as I worked out how decades of music, performance, film, art and personal history could be brought together in one continuous visual journey.

There was never a rigid blueprint.

I would discover something, sketch it, paint it and often find that it opened the door to another idea. Some references remained tiny details within the oils; others demanded to escape the canvas altogether.

That is how a telescope appeared between the paintings. How Bowie became a giant metal spider. How his lightning bolt became stained glass. How another spider returned later in glass. Where I didn't have the skills to make something myself, I designed the idea and commissioned artists in New Zealand to help bring it into physical form.

The three canvases gradually became one connected construction, with every material chosen to help tell the story.

This gallery takes you behind the finished artwork and into that making process — from the early drawings and developing compositions to the painted details, commissioned pieces and final assembly.

This is how my Bowie was built.

Early preparatory sketch for Julia O’Sullivan’s David Bowie triptych, showing Bone, parts of Haddon Hall, telescope ideas and handwritten research notes about Bowie’s early life.

The First Ideas - Building Bowie's Beginning

This early sketch shows the first ideas beginning to gather around the painting.
Fragments of Haddon Hall sit amongst handwritten notes about Bowie's early life, while Bone appears as another reference waiting to find its place. There are also early thoughts about the telescope, which would eventually become the physical link carrying Major Tom from the first canvas towards the second.
At this stage nothing was fixed. I was researching, drawing and collecting connections — working out which parts of Bowie's early story could become images and how they might eventually fit together.
The composition was beginning to find its way out of my notes and onto the canvas.

Early planning sketch for Julia O’Sullivan’s David Bowie triptych, featuring the Berlin Wall, a troubled Thin White Duke and handwritten notes mapping ideas for this darker section of the painting.

Berlin and the Thin White Duke — Mapping a Darker World

This sketch begins to map out the Berlin section of the triptych, with the Berlin Wall providing the structure while notes and ideas gather around it.
Here I was exploring what would inhabit this darker part of Bowie's story, including an early idea for a more crazed and troubled Thin White Duke, alongside references I was considering for the surrounding landscape.
The sketch shows how I worked before committing anything to canvas — collecting visual clues, testing their positions and gradually allowing one Bowie world to lead into the next.
Alt text: Preparatory sketch for Julia O’Sullivan’s David Bowie triptych showing the Berlin Wall, early ideas for a crazed Thin White Duke and handwritten notes planning imagery for this section of the canvas.

Detailed planning sketch for Julia O’Sullivan’s David Bowie triptych, filled with handwritten bullet-point research notes and an early conceptual design for Tin Machine at the centre.

Building Tin Machine — Ideas in Bullet Points

This sketch shows how much of my planning happens through notes as well as drawing.
The page is crowded with bullet points — references, fragments of Bowie's life and ideas I wanted to explore as the composition developed. In the centre is an early concept for Tin Machine, beginning to take physical form amongst all those written thoughts.
I make a lot of notes as I work. They allow me to capture an idea quickly before deciding whether, where or how it will eventually enter the painting.

Working sketch for Julia O’Sullivan’s David Bowie triptych, covered with spontaneous handwritten notes, scribbles and developing ideas gathered during the creative process.

Ideas as They Arrive

Another page of scribbles, fragments and quickly captured thoughts.
This is often how I work. An idea comes to mind and I write it down before it disappears. Some develop into important parts of the painting, others change completely, and some never make it onto the canvas at all.
These messy pages are where the finished composition begins — thinking on paper before deciding what stays.

Full paper planning sketch for Julia O’Sullivan’s three-canvas David Bowie triptych, mapping the composition, imagery and flow of the artwork before construction began.

Mapping the Three Canvases

This photograph shows the full paper plan for all three canvases, with the journey mapped out before I began committing everything to paint.
By this stage I was working out how the different periods, characters and references could flow across the triptych and how one canvas would lead into the next.
What I hadn't worked out was how I was actually going to assemble the whole thing.
That was a problem for another day.
For now, I had the map.

Early oil-painting stage of the second canvas in Julia O’Sullivan’s David Bowie triptych, showing Ziggy Stardust, imagery behind the window openings and hidden Laughing Gnome self-portraits later concealed during assembly.

Ziggy Begins to Emerge

Here the second canvas is beginning to take shape, with Ziggy appearing and the wider composition still completely exposed.
At this stage you can also see the painted imagery that would eventually sit inside and behind the windows, along with my hidden Laughing Gnome self-portraits. Once the triptych was assembled, some of these little details could no longer be seen.
I rather like that they still exist inside the finished artwork — hidden pieces of the making process that only these early photographs reveal.

Early oil-painting stage of the third canvas in Julia O’Sullivan’s David Bowie triptych, showing the first layers of colour and composition beginning to develop.

Canvas Three Begins

The third canvas in its earliest stages, with the first areas of oil paint beginning to establish the composition.
At this point the detailed world that would eventually fill this canvas was still emerging. The main structure had been planned on paper, but much of the colour, depth and intricate detail would develop gradually as I worked.
This is the stage I enjoy — when the plan stops being a sketch and the painting starts making its own demands.

Early assembly of Julia O’Sullivan’s David Bowie triptych, showing the three painted canvases positioned together for the first time to test how the compositions connect.

Bringing the Three Canvases Together

For the first time, you can begin to see how the three separate canvases were going to work as one continuous artwork.
The individual compositions are starting to connect, allowing Bowie's story to flow from one canvas into the next. Until this point I had been concentrating largely on creating each painted world; now I could begin to see whether the triptych would actually work as I had imagined it.
This was the first real glimpse of one artwork rather than three paintings.

Stained-glass spider created for Julia O’Sullivan’s David Bowie triptych, photographed before being mounted onto the final artwork and modelled on the spider species named after David Bowie.

The Glass Spider — Ready for the Canvas

The Glass Spider before it was added to the finished triptych.
I designed the piece and commissioned my glass-artist friend in New Zealand to create it, modelling its form on Heteropoda davidbowie, the real spider species named after Bowie in connection with his spider imagery.
Seeing it complete and separate from the painting was quite something. The next step was to bring this delicate piece of stained glass into the much larger construction, where it would finally become part of Bowie's world.

From Sketchbook to Finished Triptych

What began as pages of scribbled notes, bullet points and rough sketches gradually became three canvases working as one continuous artwork.

I didn't have every technical problem solved when I started. I knew what I wanted the work to do, and I worked out how to make it happen as I went.

Canvas was cut. Oil paint was layered. Metal and stained glass were introduced. Pieces were designed and commissioned when I needed skills beyond my own. Some details disappeared behind the final construction, while others broke free from the surface altogether.

That process was part of the adventure.

The finished triptych looks very different from those first chaotic pages of notes, but the journey is still visible within it.

You've seen how it was made. Now step inside the paintings and discover why every strange detail is there.

Next: Read The Metamorphic Life of Davy Jones — The Artist Journal

Jupigio-Artwork-Gallery

Rare - Unusual - Unforgettable

Creating The Metamorphic Life of Davy Jones

From First Sketch to Three-Canvas Bowie Triptych

From Sketchbook to Finished Triptych