Some People Claim There's a Woman to Blame...

As mentioned before, my lovely wife and daughter got me a fabulous 40th birthday present.  I was to spend a fun filled week on a dive boat in the Bahamas with my buddy Brad.  My wife (a planner) had this worked out 2 years in advance.  She presents it to me on my birthday in March.  Sounds great right.  It is.  Except the trip is for the last week in AUGUST!  Talk about anticipation.

Flash forward 5 months.  I'm torn, I cannot wait to get on this boat but...I've been anticipating it for 5 effin' months.  Once it's over it's over. It's the marathon blues all over again.  It's the Event!  You plan for it. You dream about it.  What do you do once it's over?  Can it possibly live up to everything you've built it up to in your mind?!

T-minus 5 days: I get a call from Brad.  The dive service has emailed a warning.  Tropical Storm 9 has begun to build.  Last chance to buy trip insurance before it becomes a named storm.  2 hours before the official naming I buy trip insurance through DAN (Divers Alert Network).

T-minus 4 days: Tropical Storm Issac is heading toward Cuba and Hispaniola.

T-minus 3 days: Hurricane Isaac hits Hispaniola.

T-minus 2 days: Cuba!

D-Day: 7:45 phone call cancelling trip.

Dammit...it's all about the comma.

Red Rocker Part Deux

Background is complete and now it's time to bring the Red Rocker to life.

 Step 1: As I mentioned in Part 1, I work from back to front so I started with Sammy's face and arms basically all the skin tones.  I use a lot of white and burnt sienna.  I like a small short bristle brush by Windsor and Newton.

Step 2: Next I block in the red tee and lay down the foundation for his trademark mop of hair.  On the shirt I opt for not doing as lot of shading and instead use texture to create flow.

Step 3: Here I added some details to the guitar strap, t-shirt logo, necklace and add some detail to the hair.  The hair is a wild curly main and has layer on layer of color.

Step 4: Here I start blocking in color on the guitar body and neck.

Step 5:  Finish the guitar and clean up a few area.  All done and ready for a nice thick glossy clear coat.

Red Rocker Part 1

I've done several portraits for friends, family and friends of family.  I decided for fun to record the process of my latest one. I've already done one painting for the same person of Tina Turner for his wife. They want to rock n' roll a room in their home. He's a huge Sammy Hagar fan so we're going to add Sammy to the mix.

Here's Tina:

Have some cake!

Sammy is going to be a little different than Tina.  With Tina it's all about the movement, shaking your tail feathers. No airbrush or blending I wanted thick paint and heavy brush strokes with a lot of movement.  Sammy's about ball's out good old fashioned in-your-face guitar rock n' roll.


Step 1 is to get as much info as possible. He chose a photo he liked and a color scheme. Sammy's gotta have red there's no other option. It needs purple in there though to tie it into the room and the Tina Turner painting.

Step 2 Put Sammy on the stereo (that's a really big ipod for those under 20) and hit shuffle!  You gotta have the right mood to paint.

Step 3 Put the picture on canvas.  I made 2- 24" x 30" canvases one for Tina and one for Sammy.  I then use a thumbnail around 5" at the longest and project that onto the canvas.

Step 4 Start with the back ground.  There's more than one way to rock and there's more than one way to paint.  Everyone has their preferences.  I always work from back to front and darkest color to lightest.

I blocked in the basics with a wide flat brush.  I just slapped this on acrylics don't blend easily so this stage was color foundation and texture.  The background is purple and blue smokey stage fog lit by colored stage lights.

Step 5 I am using my airbrush to even out the colored smoke.  I want the background transitions to be smooth so that the bold strokes of Sammy jump at the viewer.

Left Side Before

Left Side After

Right Side Before

Right Side After

BEFORE

AFTER

Back ground is pretty much done come back for part 2 to see how Sammy turns out.