A few weeks ago our work pub had a bit of a paint makeover and some of the finer artistes around thought it might be a fun idea if everyone in the company got a canvas a suitable logo or bottle picture to paint for decorating said pub. I chose the Chivas Regal logo, because it looked simple enough – I was later to be proved very wrong – and limited to a few colours.
My medium in high school art class was colourpencil, so I didn’t think I’d be able to handle oilpaints, especially the long-drying process. The lady at the art-store suggested acrylic, which dries faster. Of course that sounded awesome until I actually had to work with the stuff and I realised just how fast it dries – doesn’t quite allow for smooth shading. I have hard blobs of paint on my masonite pallet to show for it. My thrifty alter-ego squealed in horror.
Anyhoo. I’m not even going to be remotely modest – It was so frikkin’ difficult, even with the carbon outline to guide me, and it looked like crap until I started painting the details in – so I’m pretty happy it turned out the way it did. I think it’s just a little bit better than ok. My colleagues seem to think it’s a lot better than just ok. And I’m ok with that.
With an outline and subject matter like that, it wasn’t as difficult as I imagine painting something less static would be. I guess I’m going to find out – I just started another painting for myself. If I actually finish it, maybe I’ll post it up here.
Looks great to me. Infinitely better than I could do, which makes me infinitely jealous =P
I bet you so could do one of these really well, if you had the same stuff – carbon outline, copying a pic.
Nah, I have no painting ability. Any form of shading is beyond me. I can do paint by number =D
Heheh. The shading technique I have is so primitive (and if you could see the painting I’m attempting now, you’d get it) – it’s the old mug/ball shading – light graduating to dark, depending on which side my ’sun’ is shining. In this painting, it wasn’t too bad mostly because I was copying from a picture, so all the shading was indicated. Our work place has an art club for staff who are interested – I think people mostly copy from pictures, so figuring out shading doesn’t seem to be included.
I thought of writing up some faux bit of art critique, complete with all the buzz words and references to the surrealists, but my mind kept wandering back to this:
Your workplace has its own pub?! What, is South Africa one of those countries where people get tetchy if they’re more than 500 meters from a source of alcohol?
Hmm, tough one *sips wine*… I think… maybe.
Wow, that looks awesome! I know what you mean when you think some art project will be easy and then it turns out to be a pain in the butt. A lot of my projects turn out like that. But yeah, looks awesome.
Nice.
Thanks Will!
Duuuuude WOW
That is really cool 
I am really looking forward to seeing more painting by yous!!! 
xx
Thanks lady! I’m trying, haha.
Don’t be afraid of oil. I’ve always been a big oil booster since I first started with it at the age of 8. I’ve played with acrylic a bit, but oil will always be my first love. The sensuality of oi is incredible.
You’ve handled the acrylics well, anyway. You might want to try building them up in washes the next time. It looks really good. I wouldn’t have known that you felt unsure of using the paints if you hadn’t mentioned it yourself.