Hey Steemit Family!
I know I haven't been posting a lot lately. There has been a lot going on and I'm still trying to find a balance between creating art and music, working on my book, creating graphics , editing video, writing posts for steemit, and getting involved in all the fun being had on discord. I know I will find my balance soon enough.
Doggy Style
I want to tell you a little bit about the project I am working on right now. Normally people pay me to paint their dogs, as a lot of you already know, most of the time spray paintings. So when people see me out in public spray painting these dogs they think, "Oh, I should have my dog painted." Which ends up breeding more dog portraits.
My neighbor, who has seen a lot of my art, watched me paint one of those dogs at the pool last summer decided that they wanted me to do a spray painting, surprisingly, of them together, but in the same way that I did the dogs.
When people ask me what style this is I have never really been sure what to tell them.........until recently..
I have decided to refer to this style of painting as Doggy Style. So now when people ask me what style that is.......you know, my inner 3rd grader can fly high for a moment.
The Project
I have never taken someone's portrait and done this for a commission other than painting a few celebrities this way. It is a long slow process. It takes a lot of planning, stencil cutting, guesswork, and time, time, time to build up the layers.
Sometimes this is the best when you have to come back to work on something several times. When you look at something for long hours you become blind to certain things in the painting. Plus when you have had time to digest and sleep on your progress and goals you come back with a better understanding of the limitations of your supplies and a better understanding of the project itself as far as where it will go.
Anyway, here is the reference photo for the project. It is a little washed out and pixelated than I would like, but I think it is a really cool photo to make a painting of. These type of closeups make for interesting compositions I think.
I am really excited about this project because it is the first spray paint commission of the year. Last summer I had to stop right in the middle of some really great momentum on developing this style and adding new techniques, mix media stuff, because the seasons turned. Those shifty bastards.
I am excited to pick it back up this summer and see where it goes. Hopefully before too long I can come up with some real studio space and spray paint whenever the hell I feel the urge.
Stencils
The first thing I do is analyze the image and transalate it into a stencil. It doesn't really need to be a perfect stencil.
This is the main stencil that I cut out for the project. The purpose of this stencil is simply to mark on the canvas where everything goes.
The goal is not to have a stencil that really spells it all out, but to place location and proportions and build up the image through layers of patterns and color that will eventually give the illusion of the experience or image.
This simple stencil allows me to keep my proportions under control while I am exploring shapes and color interactions.
The Progress So Far
This is about a third of the way done. At this point all I have done is get them down in the right place and start establishing a base layer. I have hardly touched her face since I wanted to base all the values off of his face I started there.
Tomorrow, if the weather cooperates, I will be continuing this painting. I still have to work on highlights and bring out the shape of the faces. Once I have that done I will refine it all and then focus on the eyes last and tidy everything up.
It is like a puzzle. I have a bag full of stencils and a crate full of spray paint. My job is to figure out how that all fits together to create the illusion of people.
I spray paint at the pool in our apartment complex most of the time so people are always stopping by to see what I am doing. I always feel slightly uncomfortable when people start critiquing my work while it is still super early and in the ugly stage. People's words can effect the whole process and the way that you see it. However it seems unavoidable.
Several people have already stopped by to comment that they look japanese, and hell, maybe they do at this point, but most of the time I am still working from the vague and slippery notion of what it will look like in my head.
While I have been enjoying the few days or parts of the day that I have been able to sit poolside and work on this piece of art I am about to go mad from this slightly imperfect weather screwing up my painting operation.
I am going to most likely post a video of the process once it is complete. I kind of already missed part of the process, but maybe it will still be worth a look.
I'm already looking forward to putting the finishing touches on and I'm not even halfway done. Getting ahead of myself again.
Anyway, thanks for reading, I'm going to go out and create a wind block so I can do some spray painting on another day with 20mph wind. I hope you all have a great day and a wonderful weekend. I'm looking forward to showing you the finished work, hopefully within the next week.
Let me know what you are thinking and feeling. Would you like to see more of the process? Do you have questions about my set up? Do you want to talk shit? It's all good. Come see me in the comment section?