In this painting I had to find a letter and illustrate it. I found this priceless letter my brother wrote my dad when he was about 7 years old. He's begging my dad to adopt another baby from Korea. In the initial sketch I literally had a baby sitting on the ice cream. That was such a problem because it implied cannibalism ha.ha.ha. Anyhow, I thought if I change the baby to a sketch then I could create a scene with crayons and maybe imply school. Yeah I was on to something. I am going to fix this painting too. I'm excited to see what my brother has to say when he see the painting.
This was one of the most challenging paintings I have ever completed. There is no black boarder around the original painting. I think this painting took such a long time for a couple of reasons. Conceptualizing took forever. I had eight pages of thumbnails front to back alone. All of the thumbnails made it hard to commit to an idea. Every time I start a painting it is such a scary feeling because I am reteaching myself how to paint. I get really nervous because I don't want to ruin my painting. Eventually I have to get it done. The skin was giving me so much trouble. I still need to brighten it up a bit but I have a better understanding of what colors (especially yellow/color of light) that brighten the painting without making the skin look chalky or neon. My goal over break is to do a small skin study in acrylic every day. I am going to try to incorporate more graphics in my painting. I really like the look of combining rendered areas with simplified graphics.
This was one of the most challenging paintings I have ever completed. There is no black boarder around the original painting. I think this painting took such a long time for a couple of reasons. Conceptualizing took forever. I had eight pages of thumbnails front to back alone. All of the thumbnails made it hard to commit to an idea. Every time I start a painting it is such a scary feeling because I am reteaching myself how to paint. I get really nervous because I don't want to ruin my painting. Eventually I have to get it done. The skin was giving me so much trouble. I still need to brighten it up a bit but I have a better understanding of what colors (especially yellow/color of light) that brighten the painting without making the skin look chalky or neon. My goal over break is to do a small skin study in acrylic every day. I am going to try to incorporate more graphics in my painting. I really like the look of combining rendered areas with simplified graphics.