February: Projects

Hi all! I'm just going to focus on publishing something at least once a month, which will usually be projects and such. I'm about to start my final year of university so there won't be too much going on apart from uni projects, but I'll be sure to share my thoughts on those as well.

I've been commissioned by extended family for acrylic canvas paintings and tattoo designs.

Canvas

The first one was from my cousin, who wanted me to paint a large canvas to suit the blue/silver/black colour scheme of their house.

The mock-up

The concept I wanted here was of freedom, that not even the sky is the limit- the dragon is seen emerging from the earth's atmosphere and into the areas of space.

Background gradient

I was introduced into the world of art with acrylic paints and pencils in my early childhood, but I had only painted on canvas twice beforehand, these canvases were quite small in comparison to this one. There were many days spent frustratedly trying to achieve the same smooth gradient that I had managed so effortlessly in previous works. The paint would dry too quickly, or my efforts would scrub up previous paint layers causing all sorts of unwanted effects. Eventually I got the above results, at which point I was satisfied with the range and depth of colours. 

Dragon sculpture

Using some Super Sculpey clay, I then sculpted the body of the dragon, wanting the dragon to literally pop out of the canvas to enhance that concept of freedom. 

This was my first time using polymer clay, and in comparison to other clays I've used, it was amazing to work with. I spent two days on the sculpting, I only sculpted parts that would be closest to the viewer, painting the rest on the canvas later. I also had to be wary of the length so that I could fit it onto the baking trays, though in the end no matter how much tail I cut off, I still had to cut the dragon in half to fit it flat on its tray.

Dragon sculpture after baking

After baking I super-glued it back together, this entire painting was a huge learning curve for me, and there are many things I'd have done differently, knowing what I do now. One example was not to bake both halves at the same time, the difference in colour illustrates just how different the oven temperature was in the top shelf to the temperature in the bottom shelf!
And unfortunately the cut edges warped a bit and the dragon has a mismatched bulge on its back and scar across its belly. It also shrank enough to comfortably fit on the smallest tray after all of that effort.

Canvas In Progress

The background was detailed some more before I added the dragon, I used some impasto gel and a bent kitchen knife to smear it across the canvas, creating all sorts of interesting 'cloudy' textures, I was able to add in some of the purple cosmic clouds using this method. The sculpture was glued on and smoothed out with the impasto gel, which was a bit like PVA glue. I added many coats of white paint to cover the clay colour and the beginning shadows of the dragons other limbs were blocked in. To get the 'stars' I dipped the tip of a dry roughly bristled brush in white paint and flicked the bristles with my thumb. I've seen many tutorials that mention using an old toothbrush, but there weren't any laying around to test this with, and my own improvisation worked well enough.

Finished Canvas

The end result. The sculpture was given a coat of glossy varnish to give it some more life and preserve the paint on it, and the entire canvas was sprayed with matte varnish.

Considering my limited experience with canvas painting, this project turned out pretty well, although I still prefer my watercolours and digital art over acrylic, there's less mess and better results in a shorter amount of time.