Thursday, February 10, 2011

St. Patricks Day


Every year I wait have usually waited until the last minute to do my annual St Patricks image, well this year I got it done early!!! This image is included in the 13th Annual Rushville St. Patricks Day Party raffle. We have done an image for this charity event for I believe every year that we have been here in Rushville ( which I believe is 8 years now).  It is a  privaledge for us to be able to participate in this every year, and something we look forwards to attending and donating too, and an honour to be able to help give back to the community here which we so love.

Many thanks to Dan, Brian, and John for doing this!!

"Dan Shanahan, John McCane, and Brian Sheehan each year put together the best per capita St. Patrick's celebration in the world. Thanks to friends, family, and sponsors each year we are able to raise around $10,000 for local charities. The party is always the Saturday before St. Patrick's Day. Mark your calendar today."

Tuesday, February 08, 2011

ZOMBIFICATION, or the progression of a zombie Part 2

When we left off with the painting in Part 1 I had just finished with the underpainting and gettting all the whiteness off the board. So now we are back at it and into the painting process.....

In this stage I have pretty much completed the sky area of the piece, and established my trees with the highlights of the leaves leading down to our star........the Zombie. The colours of the sky were a mixture of  Sap Green, Ultramarine Blue and Cadmium Red Medium ( to sort of tone down the green ) for the darkest areas, as it fades or lightens I used Cerulean Blue and Cadmium Yellow Light.......this was also the colours of the highlights in the leaves.

In this part of the process I also established the beginnings of the mist for the painting as well as the foundation for the Zombie path.

After getting the sky and trees in I went back to reestablish the moon. With the paint still workable in the sky, I into the moon so I could have a softer edge in some areas and blend it into the sky.  I also started adding some detail to the path, putting some grass along the edges of it and working on the stone pillar on the left had of the image.

The rocks of the pillars are basically a mixture of reds and greens to give me some muddy browns......as well as some Ultramarine Blue for the darker areas.

Next I started in on the Zombie and getting the gate back in, as well as some more mist work.


At this stage of the painting I am now working the entire surface of the painting bringing out and pushing back to bring it all home, but mainly concentrating on the Zombie.



....some Zombie detail....


For the flesh of our Zombie, I wanted it to be a greyish colour but with just a little more "colour", so I made it more of a bluish purple. Some of the shadow and decayed areas are Asphaultum and a little black, and dry brushed on to kind of give a dried out appearence to the flesh. For some of the hair, I took the tip of a very pointy exacto knife and scratched into the paint to get the fine lines of highlights.

...........and here we have the completed Zombie.


Thanks for listening.