Second Pin Up Painting

I worked on the second pin up tonight. The working title is I Believe The Scientific Term is Concupiscent. I have more paint on this canvas than the first I think, only it's all white acrylic covering pencil sketching. I've been fighting with this one for days. She is going to be kneeling in sand on a tropical beach with exotic frogs in her jar. Why? Why not. I finally came up with a pose I like and started on the flesh tones. After it dries a bit I will go back over it with some glazing. The right arm looks a little muscly, but hey, I had to use my own arm as reference. I can't help it if I'm ripped. Right.

Day four, five?

"I said do you speak my language? He just smiled and gave me a Vegemite sandwich." It is definitely late and I've had one too many perhaps because I am now listening to Down Under by Men at Work for the fifth time in a row. It's so catchy!

Tonight has been quite productive. I have most of the background done on my first pin up painting. Once it is completely dry I am going to add steam on top of what I have done. (It's a train by the way.) My friend expressed concern that the background would take away from the pin up but I think the cloud of steam will help that, and I like the idea of a non boring plan background. I still have a lot to do, but I'm getting there slowly but surely.

Eager Beavers Don't Get The Best Results

I'm waiting for my first pin up to dry for a few days before working on it some more. I have figured out what background I want to do and I'm excited to finish it. In the meantime I am overflowing with creative excitement for my new found ideas. Tonight, however, I ran into a couple roadblocks. I decided to start on a new painting. I put four layers of gesso on a canvas that had a portrait of Dali. When I started sketching the new painting out I found that the pencil will not erase off the gesso I used. That sucks. So I used white acrylic as an eraser of sorts. It didn't work too fabulous, but I did learn a new trick. By putting a thin layer of the white acrylic over the pencil I could still see the pencil but it was sealed so it wouldn't bleed and smear when I painted over it with oils. This is where art school probably would have come in handy. I feel like I don't have a clue what the hell I am doing I'm just blindly stumbling forward and figuring it all out as I go.
The second road block is that my ridiculous impatience snuck up and I couldn't help but start on the head. I like what I have, but keep in mind once it's dry it needs some tweaking. More shading, and the feathers on the hat need to be filled in. But after looking at the whole canvas I hate everything else about the sketch. The entire body that was purposely left out of the below picture.
I just realized that this post is stupid long and no one but me will probably ever take the time to read it so I'll stop. Hopefully new pics of paintings will be up tomorrow!

Pin Up Painting Day Four

Holy crap it's after one. This is the bad thing about painting. A two hour session very easily turns into a five hour session. She is coming right along. I cleaned up the shadows on her face and worked on her robot/metal whatever it may be accessories. I'm scraping the plan to do a lace or brocade pattern on the corset. I need to add lots of shadows but that will have to wait until it's all dry. The background is really going to make or break this one.

Pin up Sketch

I have sketched out my next pin up painting. I am currently gessoing over my Dali portrait so I can use that canvas. Since I'm trying something new with these pin up paintings, a little thing called patience, I have to wait a few days en between working for layers of paint to dry. That will enable me to work on several paintings at once. Or so that's the logic. We'll see how it pans out.

Steampunk Pin Up Day 3

Only worked for an hour and a half tonight. I got the head mostly done and put the guide lines for the lacing on the bodice. I'm thinking the background will be the wheels of an old steam engine. That will be fun.....

Steampunk Pin up Painting Day 1 and 2

This is my newest painting. I'm going to post pictures of each day's work. The skin tone on day one took four hours. I did the basic corset color on day two and that only took an hour and a half or so. I have a long ways to go on it still. I plan on adding seams and stitching along with grommets and lacing. I will also paint a lace or brocade pattern on the main part of the bodice. I want the paint to dry before I start on that.

Bad health and Prejudging

It's been an interesting few weeks. Last month I tripped over my bed and cut my toe open. A trip to the Urgent Care was followed a week later with a trip to the podiatrist. They cut a chunk off my toe and sent me on my way. That kind of sucked. A month after the original tripping incident and my toe is finally starting to heal. The night of the toe incident had been going so well. Nick and I had gone to the Symphony and ended the night playing pool. Too bad it had to end with a freak accident.

I also came down with the flu last week. Now that really blew. I am absolutely getting a flu shot this fall. I am just now starting to feel normal again.

Today was the prejudging for the Hyde Park Art Show. I'm not sure how I feel about it. Last year I new the moment I walked away from the judge that I didn't get in. This year I'm not sure. I don't have a great feeling about it, but who knows. I've got at least a month to wait until the results are mailed so I'm going to turn my attention to something else. I've had a steam punk pin up sketched out on canvas for several weeks now. I think I'll start on her tonight. I'm going to try and do her in a Gil Elvgren like style: