Quick Draw Result

Steampunk Anglerfish Spaceship- Acrylic and metal leaf, 11" x 10"

As I mentioned last week, I participated in a fund raiser auction at the Reagan Academy in Springville, Utah last Friday night. About a dozen artists gathered to create a piece of art in a roughly two hour time frame (many thanks to artist Julie Olson for these photos). The art was then auctioned off at the end of the event. I cheated a bit and did my under painting of this Steampunk spaceship beforehand as well as creating a distressed faux leaf textured border. This one fits in with previous pieces I have done using this technique.  It's always a bit stressful to "perform" on such a time line, but I enjoy these demo sorts of events.

Me "faux" painting- I was already done by the time this was shot.

Usually I don't have to worry about it being finished at the end of the time, so I found myself working quickly to make sure that all areas of the picture maintained an equal level of "finish. I think this is good advice and a worthy challenge. I have heard it said by many artists that you should approach your work in such a way that you could stop at any moment and the picture would look "finished". In other words, don't overwork any part of the piece at the expense of another. I found myself analyzing what strokes would best describe the effect I was trying to achieve. I would have preferred another few hours, but time ran out quickly. Given more time, I would go back in and strengthen the transitions between light and shadow and make the lighting more dramatic, but hey, I had two hours. I took an extra ten minutes or so as the auction got underway to put on a few highlights and a signature and then it was sold to the highest bidder. Last year the auction raised about $8000 for the school.

Steampunk Spaceship 2

As I mentioned last post, I am working up a little piece that I can paint at a charity quick draw auction tomorrow night. I have never been particularly fast as a painter, so in order to ensure that I can finish, I know I need to get a good start beforehand. I pulled one ship from the sketch in the previous post and redrew it. I changed some of the proportions and details, like adding a smokestack. Smokestacks are totally incongruous with space travel, I know, but fun nonetheless. I then took the sketch into Photoshop and did some basic coloring. The second image is what I call my "digital under painting".

I intentionally keep the contrasts low and the values darker than normal so that I can bring up the highlights with paint. I then print this out on my 13" x 19" Epson printer, mount it on a board and paint over the top.  I do this often to save painting time as I can get certain effects like the smooth gradient in the background much faster and easier than I can physically paint it.. Some ask why I bother, why not just finish it digitally? Well, first off, I love paint. I love the tactile interaction I get while painting. I love the organic quality, I love the incidentals and "accidents",  I love the fact that there is a physical artifact left over after the process. Don't mistake my comments as a knock against digital work. I am still diligently trying to learn to paint with pixels as I believe it is a valuable skill, but there is something in keeping up with actual painting that I know will make me a better digital painter- eventually. I'll post more as this project moves along.