Joker Pt. Part 5

Continuing the Joker's hair! This time I want to add some darker and lighter tones of hair to give a sense of volume.



There is about four different variations of green for his hair, some lighter with olive green, burnt umber, hooker's green, and naples yellow. I just keep adding strands of hair, until its like this:


I may add more hair later on, depending on what I feel about the piece when its closer to completion.

That's about it today, sorry its so short. I need to stop at a store tomorrow to pick up a better lamp for painting. I had some people make several suggestions, I'll see what I can find.

Joker Painting Tutorial part 4

Now its time to start the hair. I'm using a Hooker's Green for the base coat, and I fill the whole block of hair:


Now I'm going to use a smaller brush, like one I might ink with. Whenever my brush strokes have to be smaller and more precise, I make sure my small brush is pretty damp feeling before dipping into the paint. I think it helps the bristles move and flow better when I make my strokes. I'm just starting by adding some locks of hair with a mix of Hooker's Green and Naples Yellow. I like using this in the mix for a lighter green instead of using titanium white because it looks a much more vibrant:


Now that my layer of light hair is done, I'm going to mix less yellow into my hooker green and make slightly different shaded locks. I'll make about three layers eventually with different shades of green to make up The Joker's wild hair:


That's about it for today. Its been pretty difficult for me to paint recently because the sun is setting sooner and I work late in the evening. I have a few lamps at the easel, but its not enough quality for me to work with. Regular bulbs give an ugly tone to most of my colors. I also have a day lamp which is good, but its a reading lamp, so I'm not getting enough light over my whole canvas. I just need to buy a good lamp for painting with, if you have one you use for painting, let me know!

Joker Tutorial part 3

Continuing with my tutorial on painting, I'm going to start talking about dry-brushing. Dry brushing is a technique where you load the brush with just a little amount of paint, and even brush it until its 'dry', meaning there is almost no paint coming off the brush. Once you get the brush ready, you lightly brush your painting, and only the impasto part of the painting that sticks out will get painted on. This will give the piece an even more raised effect.



I mixed my Payne's Gray with just a little zinc white, and prepared my brush for drybrushing. I painted around, and I especially painted around the Joker to give him a sort of haloed glow around him. After I highlighted with the drybrush, I mixed more zinc white to make a whiter light blue, and continued the process. I did this about three times to give a nice gradient of brightness.


This is the first drybrushing layer. You can see that there isn't too much of a difference between the original Payne's gray background and the lighter blue. I want each layer to be a subtle change.


This is about three or four coats of drybrushing , each getting brighter and brighter.



Now that I'm done, I peeled away the frisket of The Joker, leaving his silhouette. See how the frisket protected the Joker illustration below? Actually, if you look closely, you can see I had only one spot of bleeding, and that was a small spot on The Joker's nose, but I can paint over that just fine. Now its time to paint The Joker!

That's it for tonight, I hope someone out there is learning something from this tutorial!

Painting Tutorial Continued

I worked a bit more on my Joker painting and took some more photos. Remember, this is all my rough thoughts, I'll be much more thorough when I actually compile it into a proper tutorial. I believe I'm going to make this into a website and a DeviantArt tutorial.

This segment of the tutorial will be on my impasto technique, its nothing fancy, but good to use. If you look at my Grim painting or my Automaton of Mars painting, you can see the impasto technique being used. I got the idea originally from Brom, no secrets there. My first painting I actually ever completed was Grim, and it is deeply rooted in Brom's work. I think I have separated myself from that quite a bit though. That's what I believe artists do, they see something they like, they imitate it for study, take what they want from it, and build their personal style.


Okay, first up is the Impasto medium. Actually the brand I use is called Molding Paste from Golden's gel mediums. The photo I found here says Light Molding Paste, but I prefer the regular molding paste, its a bit heavier, more sculpting, and feels a bit tougher and longer lasting. I think it takes longer to dry as well, which in my book can be both a plus and minus.



This stuff is kind of like mud. I use a palette knife and just go wild, making marks, slashes, splatters, whatever. I'll impress the knife into a bunch of medium on the canvas then pull up and down a few times to get a real textured look.


I'm applying amounts of the paste all over the areas of the background for this piece. I want the background to look something like a stone wall, lots of texture. Once i get the paste where I want, then I start messing it up.


This is where I press down with the knife and lift repeatedly to make a messy texture.


I'm trying to get it everywhere except on The Joker. I want it to look like a maniacal prison cell in the end.


Okay, I have the paste how I like it for right now. One note, I used to paint flat on a table when I started painting a few years ago, before I built my easel. Yes, I said I built my easel. I like to build whatever I can, so its to my specifications, and generally much cheaper. I also built my light box for transferring sketches onto bristol board. Anyway, when I painted flat on a table, the impasto technique would actually start going slightly flat as it dried due to gravity! Now that my canvas is standing straight up, depending on how thick it is, it has the potential to run down. I'm going to let this dry, its not too thick for me to worry too much. But when its dry, I'll take another photo, and then possibly add some more paste if need be.

That's all I have for now, hopefully tonight I'll get some more work done, which means more photos and blogging. Tonight I am going to see the new Star Wars movie with an old high school buddy whom I haven't seen in almost ten years.


*Update** 9:35pm

Okay, so I'm back from the movie and I worked some more on the painting. BTW, the Star Wars movie was pretty good. I didn't like that the droids were really stupid though.


Okay, one of my tools I use is frisket. Frisket is generally an airbrush artist's tool, that's actually where I learned to use this first. Frisket is like a giant clear sticker than you can put over your painting, then cut out shapes with an exacto blade and paint over it. Once you're done, you can peel it back up and the covered area is protected from your paint job.
I'm going to use the frisket to protect The Joker, while I get wild and paint the background. I want the background to have some gradients and drybrushing effects, so as I wildly paint, The Joker will be safe behind the frisket.



I don't know if you can see it in the photo, but I cut a square piece of frisket around The Joker. Now its time to use the exacto blade to carefully cut the silhouette of The Joker.


Here, I have The Joker cut out, and ready to paint.


I am using Paynes Gray here to start a base coat of the background. I want the background to be a very dark blue with lighter blue highlights. Paynes Gray works well for this because its almost black. One thing I'll have to remember is that when this dries, I'll have to rotate it and be sure to get the bottom of the canvas completely covered with paint as well.
A note about painting over frisket. Always try to paint going away from the frisket, not towards the frisket. If you paint towards the frisket, you potentially can lift up the frisket and accidentally paint into your covered area. If you paint going away from your frisket, you'll keep pressing the edge of the frisket down, ensuring a safe bond to the canvas.

How I paint, the beginning of a tutorial

I think Im going to make a tutorial. I'm taking photos and scans of each step so far with my Joker illustration. I haven't seen too many traditional acrylic painting tutorials here, or anywhere, perhaps it will be useful for someone.

I kind of made a quick rundown so far:


My first sketch of what I wanted Joker to look like


First sketches to figure out the pose. didnt like this, because it was
to directly forward, very boring and undynamic. I drew a little sketch
below to figure it out.


Another idea, this is going into a better direction.


My first sketch.. its okay, but it needs more arch in his back and a
bit more madness.


This is now really getting somewhere. but its drawn in my pocket
sketchbook, and needs to be redrawn much larger to make better
details.


Larger paper, very early stage


Final sketch, ready to project with my opaque projector, onto a canvas.


This is my opaque projector. It takes 4"x4" illustrations, so I scan
my final illustration, and reprint it at a size that will fit. Then I
fit it inside and project it.



This is in the process of the projection. Note, I didn't take a photo
of my Joker painting while I was transferring it with my opaque
projector, so that's why the two other photos don't match. I was going
to do this some time ago with my St Jerome painting, but then set it
aside to work one some more imperative things.



Now that it is aligned to the correct size and focused, I can sketch it over. The reason I do this process, rather than just freehanding onto the canvas is because I get very nervous with a giant blank canvas and lose direction, a sort of artist block. I feel I can be much more creative and loose onto sketchpaper without worrying about screwing up a big canvas.


Now its on the canvas, ready to paint. The canvas I believe is 18"x24"

I'll keep taking photos, and writing. I want it to be pretty thorough so people can maybe learn something, or even teach me a few tricks to my process of painting.

Joker continued

Ive been drawing, but mostly things I don't really care to share yet... I've been trying to draw Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, but they are kind of hard to draw, the shell makes it hard for me to pose them in a dynamic way. I'll keep going at it, been wanting to draw a Ninja Turtle for some time. But I have drawn more to the Joker illustration. I actually just redrew it on canvas to prepare to paint.

Castro Monday?!

So, today I drew Fidel Castro... No idea why, but I did. So that's him below. By the way, my personal opinion is that he's dead, and the Cuban Government is covering it up. Dude has to be dead, he's been sick and old for so long.




Don't know what else to say, so this is a short blog today?