I’ve been trying my luck at painting over the past few months.  Although I’ve been very reluctant to publish any of those attempts online I’ll share what I’ve completed today.  I’m going to show step by step the struggles I had with this painting.  As I so often do with creative endeavors I’ve “bitten off more than I can chew” and tried to paint something that would give a seasoned veteran of the brush fits.

The scene I chose to paint was a modification of a photograph that was taken from above, but looking through, an open car door.  To make matters worse I decided to paint it on a large canvas (about 5′ x 3′).  The size became a problem because as I was working on one part I would lose focus of that part’s proper size in relation to the rest of the painting, because my up close view distorted my perception.  After a while I realized I had to open my bedroom/studio door and back up into the hallway and look at the piece from a distance to see if anything was… “off.”  In a few instances I completed part of the painting before doing this and was forced to completely repaint.

anyway, more on all that as we go along, let’s get started:

This is the very beginning. I’m rarely able (so far) to make my finished paintings look as good as the original sketches imply.  In this case you can see I’m employing a dual monitor set up to allow me to grid the source photograph in photoshop.  If you look on the lower left you can see I was already having trouble with the foot – and in the upper left already struggling with the wheel.

After laying down a tiny bit of preliminary color I decided to use a “splatter paint” approach to try to duplicate the look of dirty parking garage pavement.  This was my Jasper Johns moment.

Next I tried to lay down more color.  Preliminary blocks of color synced to shapes.

Continuing on in this fashion I added more detail to several areas.  Taking a step back I noticed that the steering wheel didn’t look right.  The loop was swinging out way to high.

Although I spent a decent amount of time on this wheel I eventually gave up, knowing that because of the peculiar perspective I may rework it for months and still notice things that the casual viewer may never pick up on.

Before finals week I started work on the dress.  I didn’t pick the painting back up until almost three weeks later.  At that time I struggled with flesh-tones (I think it may have been a mistake to cheat and buy that “flesh tint” tube).  I also was starting to realize that the dress as-is wasn’t matching the heavy tone of the skin and was also so drab that it sullied the painting down ; I didn’t want her skin to be the only interesting part of the painting.

Note the foot at the bottom.

Here is a photo after doing more work on the skin.  I started to draw out the lines for her shoes when I noticed, Jesus! look at that huge freaking foot!  …. so, just like the wheel, I had to repaint that foot.  However, unlike the wheel, it would be hard to replicate the garage floor “under” it.

Here is after repainting the foot.  Note the part at the bottom where the rest of the foot used to be.  Although it still doesn’t look anatomically correct (too flat across the toes), I think the detail on the shoes is distracting enough to pull attention away from this shortcoming.

Next I wanted to tackle the boring gray dress.  I tried to add color… I thought a splash of yellow.  Yellow almost never works in a painting, I should have learned that when I tried to paint yellow sheets about two months before and converted those to light green so they wouldn’t be as garish.  This time it was  no different.  I started off with yellow, added blue to make green… and then had the brilliant (stupid) idea to add in some red – turning her dress into a vomit colored mess….

yikes!

I knew this was another starting over point, so I put a few layers of white watered down with acrylic medium over it.  I actually kind of liked this look, as it made the dress look somewhat light and “airy.”  However, this was still boring, I had to do something.

I thought I’d try making it a flower dress.  I didn’t plan this out very well and ended up with different size flowers.  Although it almost looks in some spots like these flowers are bullet wounds.  This was now Saturday morning.  I took a break for lunch.  While watching the 2009 college football preview (heavy on the USC and light on the OSU, as usual) I saw a commercial which I thought was ridiculous.  In it, a man is consulting with his wife about what to do with their rewards money.  He suggests taking a romantic cruise for the both of them.  He remarks that “you could spend these rewards on just about anything”… she points at her new dress, smiles and says “I know.”  The end… the moral of the story, it is much better to spend your money on a dress than a romantic vacation for the both of you.

I said something under my breath and looked out the window.  The image of the woman stuck in my mind for a moment.  I decided to use the cut of her dress, it was going to work much better than what I currently had in my painting.  The top of the dress as it was (see above) looked basically like a tank top… which isn’t very feminine.

After adding makeshift “pleats” on the top of the dress I noticed that this looked much better than before, gave the dress depth and made it fit in with the skin tone more.  So, I continued on with this blue tone and finished the dress.

I spent another five hours or so adding details, fixing the pavement and lastly adding her hair.

I apologize for the poor quality (darkness) of this photo, it looks better in person.  I’m ready to call this piece finished, but I must say I’m not as happy with it as several of the others I’ve done lately.  I should start posting more pieces, if only to be fair since I’ve publicly badmouthed other artists time and time again.

(yes, I know, her head is too big and her right forearm too thin… and her left hand smaller than the right)