A Brave New World - Part 1 - Not Freaking Out

I hinted on Monday's post that I am up to something wacky. Over on Facebook I posted a teaser image of some globes of color on a plastic surface. Today I have for you some of what has been going on... in pictures, mostly . I think it started this year at the Illustration Master Class, was egged on at Gen Con and finally made a certainty at Illuxcon, that I needed to try my hand at traditional painting. This was all moved along with a (un)healthy amount of freaking out on my part as I tried to get my head around something I really have never done. I asked a lot of questions, looked at a lot of the real stuff and finally having the time in my schedule I jumped in. This is what has happen so far...

Hard board, acrylic media and a print of an older drawing with a digital under painting are about to have a party.

Party complete, I have my drawing with digital under painting firmly attached to the hard board... it is like magic!

READY TO PAINT! Okay, I learned many things about myself and painting in the next few moments. (1) I do not like working on an easel, I MUCH more prefer working flat on a surface like drawing. (2) I sometimes work to wet to work on an easel and will quickly create a mess, time to ditch the easel. (3) I do not need the under painting, the drawing will be enough for me, I was treating it like my digital work so for this it was too dark and too over powering. I am confident that a line drawing will be fine and that I will do all the under painting with the actual paint. (4) I prefer a smooth surface to paint on. Somehow I printed my image on the rough side of the paper and didn't notice until I started painting. I am fighting the grain a bit, I have a spare bit of paper I am testing colors on and I am using the smooth side and it is just what I want to work on.

Now I know! And knowing is half the battle!

After worrying about color choices, the great and powerful Jeremy McHugh was nice enough to give me some advice and told me two yellows, two reds and two blues to start with, I went ahead and grabbed a white, a black (which I have not touched yet) and some of my favorite earth tones and I was good to go.

Paint going on... it should be noted that this was the point at which I FREAKED OUT. Having not done this I have a lot to learn. This thing was out of control and charging in an unknown direction. Needless to say I felt a wee bit out of my element. ...where is my computer???

After some panic I calmed down and got to work using what I know from all this time working on the computer and from my time painting makeups in LA. Slowly I think I am taking control of this thing and getting my head around it. STILL LOTS TO LEARN... but I think I see some potential to this whole working traditionally thing! :P

This is where the painting stands after the first evening of painting. I will be working on it again later today. I hope it continues to go well... or as well as it can being my first traditional painting.

This is the fun part! I really like mixing the colors to make new colors, it all makes sense in it's strange way. Like science and magic all in one.

See you back here on Friday with hopefully more progress images! Until then...

For more samples of my work or to contact me regarding my availability head over to my website: www.christopherburdett.com