Simple Start

I have a pile of sketches and rough draft always waiting to come to life as full pieces. Lately I’ve been trying to work on a few collections of paintings. I like having an assortment of the same themes or styles. Once you have an idea, more always follow so why not make them too yes? There’s a few extra reasons why this is a good idea as well.
So having been ultra busy lately on setting up the website and doing custom work for various entities, this little painting will in fact be the very first started in 2013.

 

Here is the tiny doodle from my notebook that it will be based on. This guy doesn’t even get to have a full proper sketch. Poor thing.

 

I started by applying a base color coat to the canvas. We don’t need to share that boring step in images. This piece will be a 12″x24″ so nothing outrageous. He is meant to be added to a collection started by these pieces here from a few years ago.

 

I’m using some silver paint which I’ll be mixing gradually with black and then white. I want this piece to have a tiny bit of texture so I’ll be mixing the colors right on the canvas. Fun stuff.

 

It’s a visually simple design so it’s good to create some detail in the background to give it interest. Foreground items are pretty much just opaque blocks (that’s simplifying it a bit obviously but you’ll see what I mean)
Take my word for it people, nothing is harder to create than simplicity. When done well, it seems so obvious it must’ve taken no time or thought process at all. Far from it. Some of the most challenging projects I’ve had to work on ended up being some of the plainest looking end products… and they looked stunning for it! But to get there… well that’s a story for another day.

 

Anyways now it’s gotta dry… my least favorite part is the wait… can’t…stand…it. This is when I go start another project. We’ll get back to this one soon…

-MT