Ms Paint: Phish - "Slip, Stich and Pass" / "Ralph Rumpelton" Art

“Slip, Stitch and Pass (2025): The shadow left first. The body followed. The orb stayed behind.”

What the critics are saying

:>>Snint Report No. 0047: “Slip, Stitch and Pass” (Rumpelton, MS Paint) Reviewed by Marjorie Snint, Senior Critic of Tethered Delusions

Rumpelton’s latest digital exhale attempts to reinterpret Phish’s Slip, Stitch and Pass through the lens of beachside ennui and balloon-based metaphysics. A lone figure stands on sand, tethered to a purple orb that neither slips, stitches, nor passes—unless one counts the passing of time as the viewer waits for something to happen. The orb floats, the waves crash, and the sky performs a half-hearted impression of drama. “Phish” is written in the sand like a forgotten RSVP.

This piece is not a failure—it’s a rehearsal for one. It gestures toward symbolism but never commits. The figure is anonymous, the tension absent, the surrealism sanitized. If this is meant to evoke the improvisational chaos of Phish, it instead feels like a soundcheck in purgatory.

Rumpelton remains a master of the almost. This work is a postcard from a dream that refused to manifest. I stared at it for 12 minutes and felt nothing but the vague itch of potential.

Rating: 2.5 stitched sighs out of 5. Recommended only for collectors of aesthetic hesitation.<<

>>An oversized purple ball — maybe yarn, maybe cosmic wreckage — is about to crush a stick-limbed figure on a beach. The waves crash dramatically, the spray arcs upward, and “Phish” is scrawled in the sand like a half-finished SOS. The drawing is loose, awkward, and inconsistent, but its chaotic energy captures the surreal humor of the album title. It’s the kind of painting that works because it doesn’t try to hide the fact it was done in MS Paint, with zero regard for realism and 100% commitment to the weird idea.

                                        Bertrand "The Brush" Barnaby<<

                                                         

>>George Weft on Slip, Stitch, and Pass

"Look, you can tell me the anatomy’s wrong, the shading’s off, and the ocean looks like someone ironed it flat — and you’d be right. But that’s missing the point. This isn’t about getting the wave physics right; it’s about making you feel that split second before everything goes sideways. That’s not a purple ball — that’s inevitability, rolling downhill with your name on it. And the guy down there? He’s you. Or me. Or anyone who’s ever thought, ‘maybe I can hold this thing off a little longer.’ It’s funny ‘cause it’s hopeless."<<

>>In short, your MS Paint masterpiece takes the subtle, surreal genius of Storm Thorgerson and translates it into the visual language of a refrigerator drawing. It's a valiant, if spectacularly unsuccessful, effort. You've managed to capture the idea of the album cover, but none of the execution<<

                                                     Linty Varn<<

>>"Ralph Rumpelton's MS Paint tribute to Phish's 'Slip, Stich and Pass' is a quirky, rough-around-the-edges piece that may polarize fans. The image features a suited figure tied to a giant purple balloon, floating above a desert landscape. While the artwork's lo-fi aesthetic may not be for everyone, it's undeniably a unique interpretation of the song's themes. Love it or hate it, Rumpelton's piece is sure to spark conversation among Phish enthusiasts."<<

                                                 Eliot Varn<<

>>Dr. Reginald Splatterworth III, Senior Art Critic, Pixels & Pretension Quarterly

Amateur Hour Meets Classic Rock: A Valiant MS Paint Tribute

Sometimes the heart wants what the technical skills can't quite deliver. This MS Paint interpretation of Phish's "Slip Stitch and Pass" album cover captures that beautiful intersection of pure enthusiasm and complete artistic overreach that makes folk art so endearing.

Ralph Rumpelton has managed to distill the essential elements—parachutist, dramatic sky, mountainous terrain—into a charmingly primitive visual language that MS Paint practically demands. Sure, the perspective makes the parachutist look like they could bench press a mountain, and the color palette screams "early Windows desktop wallpaper," but there's something genuinely appealing about the unabashed DIY spirit on display.

This is the kind of earnest fan art that embodies the Phish community's grassroots ethos better than any technically proficient recreation ever could. It's rough around every possible edge, but it's got soul. Sometimes that's enough. Sometimes that's everything.

Rating: 3/10 for technical execution, 8/10 for pure heart<<

                  

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