Figure painting (spring 2013)

This is one of my paintings from university. It was set up like a critique was taking place in the painting with three of my friends sitting and one standing. I used a photo for reference, for proportion only and had my friends sit in as models as I painted. I map out my paintings the same way each time by using either burnt umber or raw senna. these colours are perfect for me when i'm mapping out tones. 

The hardest thing about figure painting is getting the flesh tones right. your painting could look fantastically painted but if your colours are off, the painting looks weird and in my university the professors aren't afraid to tell you to start over(even if the project is due in 2 days). When it comes to painting flesh tones, the one colour that I never use is FLESH TINT, it is possibly the worst colour ever. all it is is an off tint of pink that can easily be made when your mixing your colours. There is no need to buy it. The only time when I buy a colour that I can easily mix myself is if I need a lot of it, other than that I mix all my colours. 

When it comes to my colour palette, I use a double primary palette when I paint. A palette with double primary colours can make practically every colour you could ever need. 

There is a lot of colour going on in the legs of this painting, which is really good. Skin isn't just one colour, its many colours layered on top of each other to create rich ochres and pinks and greens and blues, yes those colours are in skin too. 

I painted over the rip in the jeans, it just didn't look right and for some reason I was having the worst time painting that part of the leg. 

See? much better. And I almost forgot Kassy's tattoo haha. I really liked working on this painting even though the class was a complete bust. It was awesome having a work environment with close friends. 

I have instagram now

The starting of my Doctor Who prints

This here is a full bleed print. Now a full bleed in printmaking is just as it sounds, the original paper colour was white, so I put this paper through the press about 2 times to get the intensity that I wanted. When it comes to printing with colour, especially a blue as specific as the Tardis, the colour roller has to be extremely clean. This way the colour comes out as intense and clean as possible. In the photo it doesn't look like the colour matches the Tardis, but trust me it does.  

My hands after printing, stained for the next 4 days after.

ugh gross. 

The next layer on this print was the Tardis, that was a toner transfer( that didn't work and I had to hand draw most of it) after which I wrote "just a mad man with a box" underneath it. This print was rather simple, and is an extended edition. I have about 12 or so prints of it just on white litho paper, and the other 8 where on the full bleed.

they turned out rather well, but there was something missing, so I let them set up for about 2 weeks while I worked on other prints and what not. After it was dry I hand tinted the windows of the Tardis to make it more unique. 

Hand tinting prints after they are done is pretty simple. All you need to to is water down litho ink with estisol, it worked rather well. It took about 3 times until the light colour showed up against the dark blue. from start to finish, I think that this one turned out pretty good.

looks pretty good.

Oh look a MOUSE! 

This turned into an edition of 6, with a BAT and 1 artist proof.

The Proofing and Printing Process

When it came to printing my tarantula it went really smoothly, sometimes printing and proofing can become a disaster. So you really need to no when its ok to say FUCK IT and start over. But when it came to my first test run back in the print studio, it went really well. The proofing of the image was finished within an hour on regular sketchbook paper until the image was to where I wanted it (press pressure wise that is) and after the proofing was done I went straight to printing.  when it comes to printing an edition you need to establish a B.A.T print, that is the print that all of your proofs are based off of and are compared against, and it they match the B.A.T perfectly they become a part of the edition. 

The only thing with this print that I don't like is the fact that it was just a test, and I didn't want to put the time into it. I could of obviously pushed it farther, and perhaps I will this fallowing summer, but until then, this print will remain unfinished.