The slides below show stages in the creation of my 2010 painting, Goodly Creature: first concept sketch, prepared canvas, initial collage layers applied and glazed with acrylic, six finished canvas sections, assembly (rear view) and final results.
Although most of my paintings aren’t assembled in this fashion, the collage and painting process is much the same.
Goodly Creature was created for the Things to Come exhibit, September 2010, Bold Hype Gallery, New York, NY. {SOLD}
This pink kitty may be dressed in classical garb, but she’s a punk at heart! It’s been quite a while since I posted anything here! But I’ve been busy. Mostly I’ve been posting work in progress, sketches, selections from my obsessive collections, & other such things on Instagram (you can follow me over there if you’d like to see more).
Lately I’ve been doing more political stuff than usual. It’s a form of therapy, more than anything else.
Coming down the home stretch on Scary– these guys are hanging out in the letter R, & at least one of them is sounding it out: “RRRRRRRRRR!” (The better to scare you with!)
This section of the painting is only about 2.25″ x 2″ (5.715cm x 5.08cm)– but just because these critters are small doesn’t mean they’re not dangerous.
More denizens of my painting-in-progress! This section is about 2.5 inches square.
I’m excited about this piece because it’s the first of a series I have in mind that will center on words & creatures. Next in line is the word “Explore”– do you have any favorite words that you would love to see invaded by odd beings?
Just a little sneak peek of the painting I’m now working on: a Halloween offering-to-come for my Etsy shop! Apologies for the image quality– this was taken with my phone.
This isn’t a new painting, but new to this site, & the process gif below is also new. It shows my technique with acrylic on paper fairly clearly– glazes, scumbles, details & highlights over archivally printed text. I painted this one entirely on the paper before mounting it to canvas, which is not my usual process, & usually the background doesn’t disappear quite this thoroughly, but otherwise this is pretty much how I do most of my paintings.
The subject is Longma, the Chinese Dragon-Horse. It’s still the Year of the Horse, right?
Acrylic on text scanned from Young People’s Natural History, 1901. Prints of this image are available in my Etsy Shop.
I’m no journalist, but I am an ink-stained wretch! I love to write & draw with dip pens, especially my beloved flexible crow-quill, Hunt 108. It gives a lovely responsive line with hairline thins & gorgeous juicy thicks, but it does have a ferocious tendency to spatter. My fingers, my desk, & pretty much everything around me tend to be bespeckled most of the time, much like this fellow. ;-)
This custom Dunny was a commission, but the client allowed me free rein with concepts. (A wonderful treat, I must say!) I set to sketching & as usual the act of drawing brought forth a flurry of ideas. In this case the shape of the torso reminded me of old-school ink bottles, which made me think of calligraphic flourishes & spatters. The client chose the sketch (along with the one for Ultramarine) & thus Inky was born!
I had to do the flourishes with acrylic & fine brushes, though, because the pen didn’t play well with vinyl. It was quite a challenge getting into the tight corners!
It’s hard to tell from this dark scan, but Inky holds a dip pen made of a poppy stalk handle topped with a fallen-soldier 108. (They do tend to wear down quickly, so I go through them by the dozen.) His ears/horns are cut-down nibs as well, I forget which sort as I found them in a box of rejected nibs. (Yes, I’m a bit of a hoarder… but see, I needed them!)
The GIF below shows Inky in process. The text is printed out on archival tissue, which conforms better to the Dunny’s contours than regular paper. It’s devilishly fragile, though!
While waiting for paint to dry on the Dunny I’m currently working on, I thought it would be fun to combine the progress shots for Dunny Ultramarine into a little gif. (Thanks to the magic of Photoshop, it is now possible to dance with one’s own backside.) ;-)
For a closer look at the finished Dunny, along with some info about the process, please see my previous post.
