Patrick Square Kat in progress

I posted a sketch for a Square Kat about a year ago, started painting the little guy and then stopped. I totally forgot to post the "in progress" picture I took from last year, so here that is first:

I started working on him again earlier this week and got sidetracked for a few days, but I was back at it again today. Here's what I have finished so far.

I'm hoping to have him finished and ready to go for St. Patrick's Day. I think it might happen.

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.

"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.

"Camul" painting finished

And there you go.

Camul may be on his last leg

I had a marathon painting session this afternoon (O.K., it was only a few hours), and Camul may (may) be finished. Except for the varnish, of course. I'll look at him again after I haven't for a while, and I'll post him post varnish.

Another day of painting Camul

This should give a better idea of the direction the painting is headed (compared to the underpainting post). The underpainted background is overpainted (is that a word?), and now the sky is blue/purple and the sand is yellow/tan. Hopefully it makes more sense now.

I noticed as I was painting that I'm not all that satisfied with how I gessoed the board. I think I laid the gesso on too thick, and all that prickly texture that I had in my other animal rots paintings isn't there. So the underpainting doesn't show through as much as I would have liked and the way I would have liked.

Here's a close-up of the sky in Jeeraffe (on the left) compared with a close-up of the sky in Camul. The gesso texture is definitely thicker than I want it.

I hope the end result still works because it's too late to do anything about it now short of starting over. And I won't be doing that.

Camul painting in progress

The progression of Camul: Report #1

I decided to scan Camul in as I go, and I'm trying to line up the images into one file in Photoshop so I'll be able to put an animation together of the progress. I'll post that animation here when he's finished.

This first image is just the original sketch transferred to the birch wood where I'll be doing the final painting.

Not much to see here.
Just move along.

This second image probably looks a little odd, but it's just at the underpainting stage. If I gessoed the board the way I hope I did (and I'm hoping I did), there will be enough texture so when I start painting subsequent layers, parts of this underpainting will still be visible in the valleys of the gesso texture. At least, that's the plan.

When I decide to use an underpainting, I try to underpaint the complimentary color of what the final color of the area will be, as in, the final sky will be purple with a yellow underpainting, and the final sand will be yellow with a purple underpainting.

In this case, the two colors I'm using for the final painting (purple and yellow) are also complimentary colors to each other. I'm a little worried it might get boring with too much of a lack of color, so I might have to interject colors that really shouldn't be there. I'll deal with that dilemma when it happens.

Edgar's coat, as I see it

The latest installment of "Where's Edgar?":

He may be finished...or not. I'm not sure just yet. I'll have a look at him tomorrow and see what he has to say.

Edgar's vest has come to an end

Worked some more on Edgar and Chloe this afternoon. I would consider Edgar's vest finished (the close-up is below), but his coat is only underpainted at this point. I'm satisfied with how everything's turning out so far.

And I had an idea.

This whole painting was meant as a celebration of Edgar's birthday on January 19th. So starting January 1st (and running through the 19th, of course), I'm going to celebrate the "19 days of Edgar" by creating a different product on Zazzle each day using this painting for each of the designs. I'll upload one design each evening and give everybody a heads up of each product's availability. After the notice, everyone has 24 hours to purchase that specific product at a reduced price. After 24 hours a new product will be released, and the price on the product from the day before will repost to its regular price.

That's it. That's my light bulb for today.

As you were.

Edgar and his raven, Chloe

Edgar painting in progress:

I think Chloe is finished, so all that's left now are the clothes.

Edgar's got some hair

Here's the latest update on the Edgar Allan Poe painting. Not a whole lot more to show, but it was an aggravatingly longish day trying to get it close to what I wanted. Just added some hair and a little of the Raven feathering. If you missed it, the first progress report would be on a previous blog post here.

Edgar Allan Poe painting in progress

So I decided to use that birch wood board for Edgar. I've been taking photos as I go, but I've been neglecting to post them. I'm such a slacker.

The biggest problem I was having was the paint kept reflecting funny in the photos, so today I tried a different lighting setup. That made everything a little blurry, but at least the background shows up without all the shiny now.

I'm posting a few versions to see it better. First, the whole space, as is:











Second, just the painting:

And third, a close-up of Edgar's face, which took the bulk of my time today: