Let there be light!!!

About a week ago, I finally went out and bought a lamp for my studio room. The difference is so amazing that I decided to take some pics to prove it.

Before:


After:


Oh, and never mind the painting on the easel.

Finished this up last night.

The title of this painting is "What Does Your Soul Look Like?", after the DJ Shadow song. Whenever I hear the song, I always imagine looking into a dark void trying to find myself, and it seems to fit perfectly with these hooded people that I've been doing. I was also experimenting with a bit more "gritty" background. So, here it is:

Another New Painting

There has been so much going on in my personal life lately. As I adjust to the changes, it's only natural that my artwork does as well. Usually, I dislike even attempting to blend paint (mainly because I don't have the patience), but I found that with the tough times it is really theraputic. I really like the way this painting came out, and I might stick with this look for a while. We'll see.

Had a chance to have some scans done.

Here is the final scan of the painting that I used to show my process:


This other one was completed the other day as well:


Both of these paintings are going to be sent off to the Fly Over Gallery is Madison, WI, for their Leftover show. I was supposed to send some "leftover" art that I had laying around, but I didn't feel happy enough with the older stuff or that it reflected where I'm at now. So, I cooked up these new pieces. Now, I just have to work on the plates (more on that later).

Finally.... a painting from start to finish.

I've been wanting to take pics of my whole process of doing a painting for a while. The problem was that I kept on forgetting to take pics in between stopping points. So, here we go:

This first step I was just blocking in some color.


Now, I'm adding some drips of contrasting colors. I'm also starting to think about which color combinations I want to go with.


After the colors are decided upon, I felt like I needed to add some more warmth to the lower right hand corner.


At this point, I'm starting to add in some paper textures with a decoupage technique. I like the textures that this techinque adds to the painting.



I'm still building up layers of paint and paper. I don't have a plan as I'm doing this, I'm just going on what I think will look best.


Here's a crappy pic of the main image for the painting. It started off with a pic that I posed for, which was then redrawn in Photoshop.


I then transfer the drawing onto my canvas with a Sharpie.


I use a Sharpie marker so that I can still see the outlines through the paint. I'm not sure why the paint reacts like that to the Sharpie, but I'm not going to argue with it. It really helps a lot when I'm on to the outlining stage.


So, here's the outlining stage. Not much to explain here. I use a liner brush, and to make the paint smoother I thin it out a little with some soapy water. I'm not sure where I heard about that trick, but it works great.


And then the final step is another outline that goes around the figure with a lighter color to really make him pop.


And that's it. I hope you enjoyed it.