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.

NEW YEAR........NEW SERIES

With the advent of the new year, I have decided to embark on a personal project to do in the inbetween times.........I have always sort of wanted to do a project on my favourite movie monster.....sort a Famous Monsters of Filmland thing......those mags had some of the greatest covers and art work. So, with all that in mind, I did this little image of the Phantom to start if off, and will be doing others as time permits, but here we go...................

THE PHANTOM



FRAZETTA TRIBUTE SHOW at the Gallery Provocateur

Here is a link to the results for Gallery Provocateur's up coming tribute show for Frank Frazetta.

Congratulations to all those who were accepted and a special thanks to the judges as well as Veronika for devoting so much time and energy into putting this thing together.

ZOMBIFICATION, or the progression of a zombie Part 1

In this and the next few posts, I will be showing my process of painting. Now it is very basic, and quite honestly similar to most everyone elses, but it is a learning experience for me as well as some of you out there.

It all starts somewhere, and that is with the concept and basic sketch for the image. Sometimes it just comes from the A.D., and you are given a passage or discription from the story, or if time maybe even the book to read. In this case, I just basically wanted to do a zombie image, and did an extremely rough rough.

Now that you have your idea and a rough, you can either go to a colour comp, and lay out your colours and get all the lights and darks down. This is definitely the way to go because it gives you a reference of what you and or your client will be getting in the end. I actually did not do this on this one.........I had a very clear idea of what I wanted, and went straight for it, since it was going to be a personal piece.

After getting the sketch ( sketches in most cases ) and all done and approved it is time to get your idea on the board, or whatever it is you choose to paint on ( stretches canvas, canvas panel, illustration board...you get the picture ).  I personally paint on gessoed Tracy-nite ( it is actually masonite, but I still like the term of Tracy-nite ). There is no one right way to get your image down on the board!!!

Repeat this phrase........

THERE IS NO ONE RIGHT WAY TO GET YOUR IMAGE DOWN ON THE BOARD!!!

Do whatever you can to get it on there. I use several methods of doing so on the same image.  For this painting it was pretty simple, I just drew directly onto the surface of the board. In other cases, I will draw directly onto it, draw on tracing paper to get the image down, use a carbon paper to trace one of my drawings onto it. I have even scanned a drawing enlarged or reduced the image to fit the size I was working on, even flipped the image because I felt it would look better going the other way.

Some folks will do there complete drawing on a sheet of paper, and project it to the surface, and retrace it. Some will have there drawing done on paper  and then apply it to a stiffer surface ( checkout Donato Giancola  ).

Once I have the image down on the surface and all settled in the way I want it, I will first spray fix the image to the surface, sand it lightly to take any bit of slickness off,  and then I will apply an acrylic matte medium to the surface. For this step, I just squirt it out of the bottle onto the board.

Once I have the medium on the board I will spread it about with a 2 inch foam brush and cover the whole surface with the stuff. Let it dry completely.

 After it completely dries, I will lightly sand the surface.......not really sure why I do this, but I do. ........it may have something to do with some past wood working where I would sand in between layers of varnish........

anyway, after I sand the surface I will take my foam and run it under the faucet and wet it down completely, and then squeeze out all the excess moisture so that the brush is damp.

I will then re-apply the medium with the damp brush. Doing this tends to give me a smoother surface to work on.



After this step is done I will let it dry comepletely again. This is actually pretty important, if the medium is not COMPLETELY DRY, it can come up off the board and you are back to square one and starting over.

Now that the surface is completely dry ( if you have time overnight is  good ) I will lightly tone the surface of the board with a wash of yellow ochre. This step is pretty important for me and my process  especially when I get to the next step, which is the underpainting.

In doing the underpainting I am establishing the lights and darks and overall tone of the piece. Here in this one I am establishing the background with colour and tone in very thin oil washes, laying in the basic foundation of the gate with a black........I did this for two reasons, the black will show thru the paint once I start laying in the thicker paint for the background and once I get further into the piece, I will already have it basicaly painted and just have to re-establish certain areas and highlight the areas I want to show thru.

Except for the background, I will usually do the rest of my underpaints with asphaltum or burnt umber. O.k., here is where I find toning the surface to come in handy........ aside form taking the white out.......it gives me a basic mid tone all over the surface....so with either the umber or the asphaltum......I can establish the darks. For the lights I will take a rag and a wee bit of turps and wipe out the ochre to give me back my lights.

In the next post I will go into the actual painting of the piece.

HAPPY NEW YEARS

A few years back I was in the habit of doing a watercolour of a Gnome for Christmas, as well as New Years, traditionally I would do them the day of the holiday or maybe a day or 2 in advance.........yes sometimes a day or 2 after as well.

This year I started back again at it, but this time in oils

...this little guy is going to be unique, since he is in oils, and although I do like him, I am going to go back to the watercolours for these, for me there is something about them that I like more, they are I guess for me more charming and I just like the look of them better.

MERRY CHRISTMAS

Just want to wish everyone out there, a very Merry Christmas, may God bless you all and bring only good things to you in the new year.

This Santa is a quick little fella done in oils on Tracy-nite, and 8 X 10. I did him in a little over 3 hours...........a nice and fun way to spend some time and get into the Christmas spirit.

SORTING IT OUT

We all have our own way of keeping our "stuff" organized and ready at a moments notice for use. At one point I was the tackle box king..........everything in tackle boxes except for my fishing stuff, but after awhile they were unorganized. After building my "ultimate taboret", I started using one of those little slide drawer organizers, and has now become a "why didn't I do that sooner??" type of thing.

All the paints are at an easy reach, the drawers are clear and you can see what is in there......of course I wrote on the drawers what the colours are so I don't have to remember what is where, and the paint fits perfectly!! except for the really large tubes which I don't really use except for white and sap green.