If there's any kind of ongoing theme to my work, it's that I'm always challenging myself. As an undergraduate, there was no exception. My junior year after painting for four years at this point, I decided I wanted to go big. At 48"x60", I built and stretched the canvas with the help of some friends and faculty! As for the content, I was having fun playing with scale with the figure in environments. For this concept I settled on a giant grocery shopping . . . or normal-sized person in a tiny grocery store. However you see it! That's part of the fun!
I started with staging photos to use as my reference. My friend, Katie, had helped me before for a photography project and offered to model for this painting too! I brought my camera and met at to a grocery store to start the photoshoot! I got a photo of her leaning over pretending to push a tiny cart, and I had to get down low to get this specific perspective to make her appear larger. I also got some shots of the grocery aisle with a standard cart, and I PhotoShopped them together to create my composite reference.
I sketched it out and got to work! I filled in my shapes, general to specific, using acrylics first and moving to oils once I had a better sense of my placement and values. Here are the process photos I took using an old phone. Can't believe it's been six years! So much trial and error. Such a learning process!
The grocery store where I took my references bought it for their store! One of my first sales!
I also got an A! Woohoo!
Looking forward to the day when I have the time and resources to embark on another large painting like this! I do have some pretty large abstract landscapes coming at you guys soon, though! One 36"x48" commission in the works now. Stay tuned!
