Happy Birthday to The Rots!

On June 29, 2006, I drew the first page of what later became "The Rots." The scan of that first sketchbook page is over there to the right. You can click on it to see it bigger if you want.

I know, it pretty much sucks. But that's why I drew it in a sketchbook and not on something expensive or important. It wasn't meant to be viewed by the general public. I was just getting my feet wet, and artwork like this was very new to me (see my fine art portfolio here).

The Rots have grown up since then (a lot), and in celebration of their fifth birthday I decided to paint Rodney as I thought he might look today (see below). Rodney was the very first Rot (he's in the upper left corner of the sketchbook page above), and he's changed a bit, hopefully for the better.

Over the past few weeks I've posted some photos of Rodney as I was painting him, so you can scroll down to see in-progress images or click here to see all the updates on the same page.

Rodney: Maybe he's finished, maybe he's not

Did some more work on the Rodney painting, and I'm thinking he might be done, but I may go back in and tweak a little more if I see something that doesn't feel quite right.

I collaged in a few newspaper headline clippings which are probably a little hard to see in these photos, but I know they're there, so that works for me. I also gave him a little friend in the background.

Pufferbelly Restaurant

My napkin @ Pufferbelly Restaurant, 414 French St, Erie PA.

"Rodney" painting update

For my latest trick, I'll post some magical paintings all in a row so it looks like it only took a tiny second of work between each one.

Ready?

Hold onto your butts...

Ta-da!

He isn't finished just yet. I'll post more of him a little later.

The Rots' Fifth-Year Anniversary

On June 29, The Rots will be celebrating their fifth-year anniversary (or should that be birthday?). Woo-hoo and all that sort of thing. It was on that date back in 2006 when I drew the very first Rot ever:

Rodney, the very first Rot ever

Seeing as how he's five years old now (and all grown up), I thought it would be a stellar idea to paint him for the occasion. The problem is, The Rots have grown up quite a bit since Rodney was born, and I decided to give him a bit of an update.

I'm painting him on a 24"x30" board (birch), and decided to try to step outside my comfort zone a little. I'm adding some collaging into the mix and also using colors that I normally don't. First up, I sketched something close to the old version of Rodney on the board, just for me. Except for this photo, nobody will even know he's there. I ended up covering that sketch up in the next step.

After that, I completely covered the board with comic strip pages from our local newspaper (the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette). Not only did that give me a texture of comics to paint over, but it also gave me a physical texture of wrinkles and gel medium-textured brush strokes to catch the paint, which worked out perfectly.

Next I worked on the background. My original plan was to paint the purple as an underpainting for an off-white sky, but I liked the color so much it pretty much stayed.

Then I sketched in the new idea I had with a little of the yellow I was using, fully intending to leave whatever yellow marks that didn't get covered up with further paint as-is (we'll see if I change my mind later).

After that I just started filling in the blanks. Tomorrow I'll finish his skin tones with some much darker shades before I move on to whatever part of the painting I decide to tackle next.