Painting a Mural: Step-by-Step (Part 2)

This is a continuation of yesterday’s blog post which you can read here.

STEP 8: More black outlines. Just went back over the black outlines here. Not all that exciting, but it does start to really pull the piece together.

STEP 9: Painted the shadow on the girl’s hands as well as the text in the word balloon. Used bubblewrap on the spine of the book.

STEP 10: Text on spot. This font is actually called “Damn Noisy Kids,” I don’t think that could be more appropriate.

STEP 11: Painted in the blue books.

STEP 12: Finished black outlines. Also went over white border.

STEP 13: Painted black borders, added black splatter around spot, did various touch-ups, and signed it.

And again, the mural hanging in the library:

For comparison’s sake, here’s the final sketch I pitched to the library director before she signed off on this design:

EASTER EGGS:

A co-worker suggested I included a secret message or word in the mural, like a DVD easter egg. And at first I thought, “that’s a dumb idea.” And then I was like, “Waitaminute, this is a chance for me to show what a huge Joss Whedon nut I am.” So if you look at the spines of the books on the shelves going from left to right across the mural, there’s a B-U-F-F-Y. A nod to the greatest TV show of all time, Buffy the Vampire Slayer. And yes I am a huge geek.

I included one other easter egg. The face of the disability monkey, the unofficial mascot of the Trumbull Library. This may take some time to explain. When I first started at the library, I would often do the schedule on the white boards (especially in children’s) and then draw a picture to go with it. One week I drew a monkey with sunglasses taking a walk and a co-worker said to me, “Why is that monkey blind?” I protested, “He’s not blind, he’s just wearing sunglasses.” And she returned, “No he’s blind.” She then named him “The Disability Monkey.” I used him on more than one occasion after that. The two I included here were for our mini-golf tournament that we held in the library to benefit a library demolished by Hurricane Katrina, and then, the best one ever, the day we were showing “The Miracle Worker: The Helen Keller Story.” That could never be topped, so he was pretty much retired after that point.

Blog-A-Day Challenge: Day 29

Painting a Mural: Step-by-Step (Part 1)

In 2008, the library at which I work hired me to paint a mural for the new young adult section. The library’s teen group had already voted for the name The Teen Spot. So using only the name as inspiration, I drew various thumbnail sketches and eventually a design was chosen. Traditionally, a mural would be painted on the wall, but the walls of the library were not conducive to that, so instead the final product was painted on plywood and hung on the wall. Because I knew how involved this project would be, I decided to take photographs of the mural as I worked. This seemed as good a project as any to chronicle the step-by-step process of painting a mural. You can follow that process below, but first, here’s a look at the final piece:

STEP 1: Purchase wood. Home Depot is kind enough to cut each piece of wood once (the pieces were originally 4′x8′). The piece that would become the spot is 4′x4′. The piece for the comic strip is 3′x8′.

STEP 2: Cut out the spot. I’ll admit I had help here. My dad is much more skilled with a jigsaw than I am, so he cut it while I held it as still as possible.

STEP 3: Priming the wood. Priming takes forever, especially doing the edges of the spot.

STEP 4: Painting the spot black. It took two coats, as did pretty much every bit of this mural.

STEP 5: Penciling out the comic strip. Dirty little artist’s secret here: WE TRACE! Because the images had to fit perfectly within the panels, I used a projector to trace my original sketch onto the plywood.

STEP 6: Painting the outlines.

STEP 7: Painting in color and applying dots. This should really be Steps 7, 8, 9 and 10 probably, but I didn’t bring my camera everyday. This is two coats of paint and then I applied the dots on top of that using bubblewrap.

To be continued tomorrow…

Blog-A-Day Challenge: Day 28

The Process of Reflection

While moving a bunch of old files to my new laptop the other night, I stumbled upon the pages from my college process book. In Senior year in my Illustration Portfolio class, all Art-Illustration majors needed to create a process book to go along with their portfolio. The process book contains the brainstorming and sketches that led up to the final pieces of art in the portfolio. These pages from the process book relate to an assignment on reflection. I had to paint a watercolor piece built around a reflective object. For this assignment, I started by making a list of reflective surfaces (you can see it below, I apologize if you can’t read my handwriting). From there, I drew a series of thumbnail sketches incorporating the reflective items. The ones that are starred were the ideas I decided to expand on (you can click on the process book page, to view a larger version of the image).

Process Book: Page 1

Below you can see the next round of sketches, these were a bit more refined. It became clear fairly quickly that the image with the knife was the strongest. In the first sketch, the victim is a woman, but I thought a man getting stabbed offered more narrative appeal. Plus if I had a woman getting stabbed by a guy, when I could do the reverse, I felt like I’d be disappointing Joss Whedon. I then started sketching various possible poses for the victim.

Process Book: Page 2

Below on the third page of sketches, I’ve decided on the position of the victim and refined the image of the knife. Apparently, I was feeling extra ‘sketchy’ while working on this project, because I even drew a floor plan for how I would shoot the reference photos.

Process Book: Page 3

Normally, I don’t do a final sketch that is this detailed. On this occasion, because there were multiple elements in multiple reference photos and erasing on watercolor paper doesn’t go well, I decided to draw what amounts to a fully-realized pen-and-ink piece first. I then took the pen-and-ink piece and projected that image onto the watercolor paper. If you’re wondering why the victim in the piece went from a young man in the sketches to an old man in this final sketch, I was basing the original sketches around using my best friend for reference and he totally flaked on me when I needed to shoot the photos. My grandfather, thankfully, was awesome enough to step in and pose for me. I actually think using an older man as the victim adds more to the story. It creates more possible scenarios for who stabbed him and why.

Process Book: Page 4

And now here’s the final watercolor painting:

Final watercolor painting

Blog-A-Day Challenge: Day 25

Whedon Wednesday: My Buffy Valentine

One of the best parts of having some artistic abilities comes around birthdays or holidays. If I’m broke or I can’t find anything to buy, I can always draw or paint a gift for someone. Nine times out of ten, the recipient loves the homemade gift. And depending on the subject matter, occasionally there are tears of joy. While searching through an old sketchbook for this entry, I also found sketches of a Buffy Valentine’s Day card I made for a girlfriend. She may have been more Buffy-obsessed than even I was, so crafting a Buffy-themed card to go with her gift was a no-brainer. If you’re a Buffy/Angel fan, you may want to turn away now because this card is Spuffy-related.

Full page of sketches

Close-up on sketch of the card

 Before I gave her the card, I took a picture of it because I was rather proud of the end result. Now I’m wondering if there would be a market for Buffy-themed greeting cards on etsy.com.

The final card: colored pencil on red canson paper

Blog-A-Day Challenge: Day 24

Bin Laden and stuff…

So I had totally planned to write up an entry about DOCTOR WHO today and then last night happened. I can’t write an entry about Doctor Who within hours of Osama Bin Laden finally being found and killed. I won’t bore you with my feelings on the issue beyond “Yay! Woooo!”, I figure everyone’s got their own thoughts and most are offering them (some of mine are probably still in the Twitter feed on the right of this blog). Instead I thought I’d post two pieces of artwork. The first is the painting I was working on the morning of September 11th 2001. So when anyone asks where I was on September 11th, my answer is down in the art department at Sacred Heart University, working on my first watercolor painting.

My first watercolor painting: a portrait of Archie Bunker

Either later that same semester or early the next, 9/11 became part of the curriculum. In my Graphic Design class, we were given an assignment to create a 9/11 memorial stamp. A lot of students were focusing on the Towers, I wanted to do something different.

9/11 memorial stamp created in Photoshop

9/11 Stampsheet

Zombie Reindeer and Other Sketches

I hate large gatherings of people. Especially, when there’s no place to escape. If it’s freezing cold outside or it’s raining, there’s no place to go. No place to catch your breath from the mass of unending noise. That’s why I bring my sketchbook to these events. It’s a way to retreat. I’ll hide away in a corner, start sketching away, and some of the madness around me starts to fade away. I’ve never really shared any of these sketches with anyone before; this seemed as good a time as any. This sketchbook was from 2006 and 2007:

Christmas Party 2006

Zombie Reindeer!

Passed-out Santa

These next few are from my grandfather’s wake. I’ll never understand the purpose of having a wake, it’s just torturous. When I die, I just want my loved ones to get drunk and share stories about how awesome I was (or wasn’t). No standing around a room for 4 hours while a bunch of people you barely know tell you how sorry they are for your loss.

My cousin Brian

My cousin Kurt

How I process death: draw the deceased as a superhero

And, this one wasn’t dated…

Random Zombie

Blog-A-Day Challenge: Day 20

Murals

Sometimes I get too attached to my own work, and I’m incredibly hesitant to sell it. So, given I can’t tear down the wall and take it home with me, painting murals is an ideal outlet for me when I actually want to make money from selling my artwork. These are some of the murals I’ve done over the years.

Blog-A-Day Challenge: Day 18

Figure Drawing

When I was a Freshman in college and had to take my first figure drawing class, I was incredibly fearful what reaction my 19-year old body might have to drawing beautiful, naked women who were standing mere feet in front of me. Little did I know, I had absolutely nothing to worry about. Years before I started attending Sacred Heart University, a female student who modeled for the art department had a major freak-out moment and since then the art department was no longer allowed to use student models. As a result, nearly all the models I had to draw were old, wrinkly, occasionally smelly, and possibly homeless. My first day of figure drawing class, I walked in and found out our model was a big, fat, black man who took Theodore Roosevelt’s “speak softly and carry a big stick” adage very literally, as he decided to model with a long Bo staff that would make Donatello of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles jealous.

Anyway, these are some of my charcoal figure drawings from college. These were all longer studies, probably between 15 and 30 minutes. This first one I love because of the face. I think this is the best face I’ve ever drawn. I love how effortless it all feels, especially the beard. The beard’s just a few jagged lines, but it’s perfectly readable. Here’s the full drawing:

Now here’s a close-up of the head:

These next two are of an old Russian woman who had a glass eye. My instructor, who was a woman, would constantly tell me my drawings of the model were too skinny. My instructor would always be pointing out cellulite that I hadn’t drawn or rolls of fat that I missed. The model was only like 10 feet away, so obviously she could hear all of these comments, I just prayed she didn’t understand English (which was a strong possibility).

For the next piece, I was instructed to go against all my natural instincts, and draw in direct opposition to my normal style. So, for me, that meant no blending, and using a lot of hard jagged edges.

Blog-A-Day Challenge: Day 15

Happy Easter from Spider-Egg!

Spider-Egg! Spider-Egg!

Does whatever an egg drawn to look like Spider-man can do,

Sits in flowers, hides in leaves,

Look up now, he’s in a tree!

Watch out! Here comes that Spider-Egg!

The Amazing, Astonishing, Spectacular Spider-Egg!

Happy Easter everyone! — Erik

Blog-A-Day Challenge: Day 14

Self-Portraits

I wonder sometimes if the reason many artists get so full of themselves is because they’re forced to do so many self-portraits in school. If you have to stare at yourself in the mirror and on paper and on canvas enough, I’ve got to think it’s going to inflate your opinion of your own self-worth. I had to do a lot of self portraits in college. It seemed like in every drawing or painting course one of the projects was a self portrait. Below are the ones I could find in an attic full of high school and college art.

This was a gift for my sister, look how adorable I was!

I did this piece for sister for her birthday one year. I used watercolor and watercolor pencils. I was such a cute kid and then puberty hit and everything went wrong.

Self-portrait in graphite

I don’t think this one actually looks that much like me, but the overall technique is pretty strong. I drew this either Freshman or Sophomore year of college.

Self-portrait in charcoal (Spooooooooooooooooky....)

I remember this piece was for a figure drawing class in my Sophomore year. I was supposed to use a single light source, but, in addition to the lamp I set up, I was watching the latest episode of the X-Files. I apparently didn’t think the light from the television would effect the light for the piece, it totally did. And I also think it effected the mood of the piece because that is one totally spooky version of myself.

Idealized self-portrait (oil paints and crayon -- yes, the crayola variety)

This was an idealized self-portrait I painted in oil and drew with actual crayons. The idea being my ideal self is that little kid drawing and having his imagination come to life around him. Everyone seemed to love this piece… except for my instructor. We got into a huge argument during the critique. He thought the kid’s drawings looked like fake kid drawings and not real kid drawings, and that the child was too photo-referenced. I thought he was a jackass. I was not so great with constructive criticism back then. While we butted heads a lot that semester, he definitely made me a better painter. Before his class, I would basically draw with a brush, rather than paint.

Obstructed self-portrait in oil paints

This one I did at the end of Junior year or the beginning of Senior year, I can tell because my hair is insanely long. This assignment was to paint an obstructed self-portrait. I had a bunch of ideas for this one, so I shot reference for my three favorite ideas. I ended up using this one where I’m obstructed by the canvas for the assignment, but later used one of the other photos in my Senior year portfolio class. And that one is just below.

Obstructed self-portrait, graphite and white charcoal pencil on gray canson paper

So, like I said, this was one of my other ideas for the obstructed self-portrait. I thought it was a strong image, so I definitely wanted to use it at some point. So I drew it Senior year when I was filling gaps in my portfolio. When I took the photos for this piece, digital cameras were not readily available. They may have been on the market, but they were too expensive for me to buy one. So I had to get these pictures developed at CVS, and that was the most nervous I had ever been to pick up photos. I was just waiting for the lady at the counter to say, “Dude, what the hell is wrong with you?” And now we’ll end with one I’m working on now.

Work in progress... graphite under-drawing with acrylic paint

I hadn’t done a self-portrait in a long time and I wanted to immortalize this beard I was positive I wasn’t going to keep for more than a week or two (it’s been four months now), so I decided to paint this one. I’m happy with the under-drawing.

Blog-A-Day Challenge: Day 13