Tuesday, April 12, 2016

Danny's Surprise Part 4

Continued from Part the Third, I'm leading you through step by step my process with handling commissions.  This is the one I'm working on right now.  I've got these plastered all over my shelves and have just decided on how I'm going to crop the piece... like the bottom top left photo.  Perfect.  Spend a lot of time looking at their butts.  I told him.  He said he had a fine butt and I needed to do it justice. :)
Ahh... yes.  Here we are.  The deal is to make your paintings look easy.  In order to do so, a lot of planning must go into the process, and here I am laying down just that.  I'm deciding on exactly how I want the figures, where I want the main focus to be, and what colors go where. 

Once I start painting, this has to be firmly established because as you know, acrylics aren't very forgiving when it comes to mistakes.

So far I've done a lot of work, and haven't even touched the canvas!  Actually, I take that back.  One of the first things I do is get the new canvas out.  From experience, I need to know exact measurements, so I write that down on the stretcher bars, along with my name, signature, contact info and copyright information.  Don't want to forget it, just get it done first!

When this is done, I set the painting up on the easel and just stare at it.  Yep.  Stare.  The size has been established and now I'm visualizing the space of the canvas and picturing the dimensions and proportions of everything I'm going to lay down.  I think it was M. C. Escher that said that some days he did a lot of painting, it just had nothing to do with a paintbrush.  That's what I'm doing at this point.  Looking.  Thinking.



This is the point at which I have received about 25% of the painting's full worth.  That gets me started purchasing canvas and paint.  Hang on to your socks... I'll be posting Part the Fifth very soon.  You can also check out my website to look at more of my paintings.  colorcatstudios101.etsy.com

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