Paint Pal 5 - The Grinch

This painting of the Grinch was done for a Paint Pal exchange on airbrushforum.org.  I pushed my abilities here as I have not progressed into portraits as of yet.  This one is semi portrait/animal.  So, I am happy with the fur areas but I need to step up my skills on the portrait area.  Specifically, the skin texture and the eyes.  Anyway, its not too terribly awful and I hope that my Paint Pal likes it.

Happy Holidays!

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Practice with Fire

This one I did about a month ago.  I wanted to get in some more practice with real fire.  I think it came out HOT!!  Sizzzzz

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Its 7" x 5" on gesso'd canvas.

Crawling Zombie

I worked on this one just before Halloween.  Its on one of those cheapy shopping bags.  Just for fun!  

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The Grim Reaper Awaits

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This is a very small painting on canvas board.  Only (4" x 4") wide.  Since its been over a month since I last picked up my airbrush, I wanted to get the trigger finger back into shape.  Now that the summer is over, I hope to do some more painting.  Everyone will meet the grim reaper at some point.. in the meantime, he waits patiently!

Here Fishy Fishy

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This painting started out with a stencil of the koi fish, the rest of the composition I sketched out.  I then painted the design on illustration board using an airbrush and a little hairy brush work.  This one was completed in August, 2014.

Jaws - Completed

Because its Jaws week on the Discovery channel, I thought it would be appropriate to complete my painting of the shark.  So this is the result.

 

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Dun, dun... dun dun.. dun dun!  LOL



Jaws

I decided to paint up something different for me.  This one is for a friend. 

 

I basically started with the background, building my color darker at the bottom and along the sides. I lightly washed my color at the top and in the middle of the painting where the shark would be. Then, I used my erasers to add the texture at the top of the water and to add the appearance of distant fishies in the background. Then I mapped out the shark using a hand cut stencil by lightly washing in some white.

 The rest is all freehand with the micron. To be continued...

 

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Flaming Skull with Horns

I'm in between projects and decided to paint up a little flaming skull.  This is a small painting and the skull is about 3 inches wide.

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Because I didn't want to spend too much time planning out this quick painting, I mapped out the skull using a small stencil and some white paint.  I then went back over it with transparent red. 

 

 

Then I added some more flame work with a mixture of white and yellow, also building up some of the facial features. 

 

 

After my compressor died on me and a few days later, I picked up my Micron and went back at it again.  I coated the entire piece with florescent orange and then went back in adding more layers of my yellow/white mixture, transparent yellow glazes and more white highlights.  Then, finally, I coated the entire black background and glazed into the flame work, but not going into the yellow areas with a transparent cobalt blue.  I avoided the yellow areas because the blue would have made those areas green and I didn't want a green hue to my painting.  The cobalt blue glaze gave it the blue, purple and red glow around the outside. 

 

Hope you like it!  I had fun doing this one as it was done freehand with no shields.

 

 



Tiny Terror - Paint Pal 4

Well, things have been a bit busy for me lately.. well, I almost always seem to have something going on to prevent my being able to paint.  My office moved, my son bought a house and moved out of my house and I had to get my house ready for the big 4th of July picnic that I had previously planned. 

 

I recently joined in on Paint Pal 4 with the orange airbrush forum.  And this is what I was working on... "Tiny Terror"

 

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This is a 5" x 7" painting using Wicked paints and my Iwata Micron.

This is the completed painting.



I first started out with the layout and a simple sketch of the project on my Wacom tablet using Photoshop.  Then, I transferred my sketch to the canvas using watercolor pencils.  (Which, by the way, was a mistake because the color smeared the canvas.  But, I wanted to try it, because I thought it would eliminate the risk of pencil lines in my work.  Live and learn!)  I was able to recover from that error and continued on. 

I worked on the background first.  Building the skyline and clouds, worked on the castle in the background and then the forest below.  After the castle and forest were painted in, I added some fog to add to the effect of the castle being in the distance below the baby dragon.  Then, I started in on the eggs.











 

 

After the eggs were based in, I outlined the dragon with sepia and added some of the detail as well.  I also started to build the tones and muscle shading as well.  

 

Then, this is the point where my Micron gave me nothing but trouble and I lost the crispness of the painting.  Being I didn't have time to start another painting, I had to forge ahead and continue with this one.

 

 

I brightened up the white areas with another layer of white, which is why this picture is lighter than the previous one.  Its a push and pull with the highlights, colors and shadows.'

 

On this day the brush cooperated and things went a bit better.

I continued to add more colors, shading and details.

 

The eggs seemed a bit washed out and needed some more shading and tightening up.  So, I deepened the shadows and used my tiny shields to get some tight lines to eliminate the fuzzies.  I also added some yellow transparent paint to the egg juices and highlighted them to make them look wet. 

 

I didn't like how the feathers were coming along and decided to change them up a bit.  I wanted the tiny dragon to be old enough that he was starting to lose his baby feathers. 

 

I also went back over the dragon pushing and pulling with the paints to get the right shadowing and highlights to come up with the final painting.

 

Viola!

 

This Tiny Terror was shipped off to the United Kingdom to my Paint Pal across the pond!

Hope he likes it!

 

 



Cheshire Cat is Finished

Well, it took me a while to get this one finished, as life, in general, got in the way.  But, I think it came out nice.  My daughter is extremely happy, now that she can put up her new painting and finish her bedroom.  The Cheshire Cat is finished.  So, this is the result:

 

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Cheshire Cat - Update

I've been working on building the textures and colors in the cat.  I have completed two layers of glazing and scratching of the fur and worked a little on the eyes.. more to do there.  And, I have added color and textures in the ears, nose and the mouth.  Still more to be done, building more textures and color in the cat.  So here is an updated photo.

 

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Cheshire Cat - Continued

Its been a while since I updated the blog on my progress of the Cheshire Cat painting.  So, here it is.  I have finished the background and will be working on the cat next. 

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Hood Project - The Fan Club - On Car

I thought I'd post up a picture of the finished hood on the car.  The owner installed the FORD letters and hood pins. 

 

 

Cheshire Cat - Continued

 

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I decided to work on the tree that the cat is sitting on.  Still not done with it as you can see. 

 

I first started adding in some sepia (light brown) to give some variation in color to the bark.  Then I came back over it with some more detail in paynes gray.  Erasing and glazing as I went to get the texture of the bark in there.  To be continued...

Cheshire Cat - Continued

I did a bit more tonight. Still working on the background. There is a little more detail in the tree just behind the cat and lots of texture in the grassy area bottom right. For those who want to know, I work a layer of paint, then erase back my white areas. Paying attention to the cats fur. The light source in the picture is behind the cat upper left, so the cat has quite a bit of backlighting. (The cats fur around his head, back and tail will be lit up by the light source and I need to preserve the white) No stencils or shields have been used yet, all freehand.

 
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Cheshire Cat - Continued

Here's a little more, still working on the background.  Keeping everything light and out of focus.  Adding textures.

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Cheshire Cat - Continued

Tonight I finished mapping out the composition and started to work on building the background in the upper left corner.  I also started to build the fur texture in the cat.  This is done layer by layer to build a nice depth in it. 

 

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Cheshire Cat

My daughter asked me to paint Tim Burton's Cheshire Cat for her bedroom wall.  This project is being done on gesso'd canvas with Wicked paints.  24" x 36"

 

So the process begins:

 

I have given the canvas three coats of gesso which were sanded lightly in between each coat.  Then I drew out the composition lightly in pencil and erased lightly so that the pencil lines won't show through.  I mixed up a little paynes gray, blue, colorless base and reducer to match up the background color and then began to lightly paint the composition in.  No details here just getting the design down.

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The Fan Club - Hood Project

This is a hood to a Ford Pinto that I was commissioned to paint over the winter.  I just recently finished it.  So here are the progress pictures. 

 

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 Cleaning and sanding the clear coat. 

 Base coated the hood with Auto Air sealer base coat and black. 

The starting of the graphics.  Mapping out the composition. 

All clear coated!

That's me holding the finished project.  Whoo hoo.. all done!