It is important to understand that I am largely a painter first. The outlining I do is from my own eye that I take from images around me or from my ability to outline from my video and image projector that is shown below.
The use of the projector is very helpful for artists attempting to put multiple drawing or images into a work of art. There are three main reasons.
- Getting the size of a figure for your work of art is paramount you can play with the exposure and size on the projector.
- The effect of the light and dark contrast allows the artist to see the fundamental lines that must be placed in the work.
- Gives the artist a better understanding of depth perception and can greatly enhance the ability to do portraits from images.
Here is how the process of my art through pics of painting process that I took with a large work of art called “A Sunset Stroll 2018” Charcoal and Acrylic.
First step includes using charcoal and or ink and putting the images in place on the canvas often with the use of the online projector shooting the images. One needs a dark space to be able to draft images on canvas. Very often I like to stain my canvases and do it either with a thick jesso or a dove gray acrylic.
Secondly I get right down to business in mixing my colours largely from the three primary colours and black and white. I take this process very seriously. I believe artists should find a way to mark their colours through mixing and making their own pigments instead of buying a large palette. Rarely do I break this rule.
Thirdly, this image reflects how I like to focus on developing the supportive space before I put a large emphasis on the focal points of the painting. They are often left for last.
Then the largest amount of time I spend is in painting in the focal points. This often has had previous time outlining my focal points from drawings or from images I have found that inspired the art that I create. The driver in this painting came from inspiration of J.C. Leyendecker who used a similar illustration for one of his paintings. I never fully copy an image, take inspiration understand the outline and take off in your own creation is my motto.
Below are a few more images of this painting put together so you can see more of my process in creating my work.
Process Photos:
The Final Product:
This painting I greatly am proud of. It has an element of innuendo, a period piece and shows what I am first as an artist, a COLOURIST!
Breakdown of this painting in time:
- Four hours of outlining and organizing images onto canvas.
- 5 hours of dealing with supportive space and augmenting my palette for colour scheme.
- 6 hours of dealing with prominent focal points meaning the main figures.
- 2 hours of refining the whole work.
Grand total of 17 hours to complete this work not including inspiration time of finding and or creating figures for the overall work. I give people a bit of breakdown of how a piece is created and often large pieces like “A Sunset Stroll 2018” 30 x 36 inches take around the 20 hour mark for creating. I enjoy the process. I hope you have found it interesting to get a glimpse of my process and thank you for reading.
