Wow, 2 posts in one day. I just finished this personal painting. I've been doing less band artwork lately to focus on personal projects. This painting started out as an exercise and turned into a really nice piece in my opinion. That almost always happens, where the paintings I'm just doing for fun are the strongest, but this time I painted it on a loose surface instead of in my goddamn sketchbook where I can't even show it. The surface is something I made for the Blues "Snakepit" album that I didn't use. This painting looks much better in real life. Like I said, I wasn't expecting it to be anything but a fun painting, so it's not primed correctly or anything to facilitate better scanning. The result is that it scanned HORRIBLY and I spend a bunch of time trying to make it passable. Healing tool = Awesome. Raw canvas reacts strangely in the scanner, plus the triple thick crystal clear varnish I finished it with was reflecting badly off the edges of the cut canvas. I have a problem where I do my best work on terrible surfaces, I'm sure that it's because it's less intimidating, and I feel less anxious about messing it up. My most popular painting is on a flooring sample and man, I wish it wasn't.
This was much painterly as far as process then most of my work. No sketches, no preconceived composition. Just exploration of the form, color, and medium. I painted this back and forth several times, and although it was tedious, it looks richer and I learned a lot. My plans for the future are to do more gallery work. I feel like I'm better suited for it, so expect to see more personal paintings like this.
