Painting Process: Vantage

Time has little meaning or disappears completely when you’re working in the studio. I looked back at photos and realized this oil painting has been on my easel, untouched, for nearly a year. Yeah. That’s how I work on things. There was just a single session left to finish it, but I let it sit there, until today. And it didn’t feel like a year. So I finally patched the last holes and called it a day. It started as a canvas I revamped from a painting I had started probably a decade prior. This artwork takes me back to a Friday at the Art Institute, when a friend of mine and I played hooky from work and drove to Chicago to take in the culture and see Death Cab for Cutie in concert. It was amazing, exhausting, and unseasonably warm, so oddly enough the Institute smelled of linseed oil. My guess is they had something wrong with the climate control system. (YIKES!) That aside, I like catching people having an intimate moment with art. Painting it becomes my moment. The angles were tricky but you know I like a challenge. What artist do you gravitate toward in a museum? I’d love to hear.

Session 1: Marker, just straight up drawing the composition onto the canvas.

Session 2: Blocking out mid ground. Finding the mid range colors that I can add shadows and highlights to.

Session 3: Adding tone. Enriching the colors to get them closer to realism.

Session 4: Details, details, details. Tightening loose screws.

Session 5: Adding those last flecks of life and adjustments to make it pop.

Painting Process: Star Wars at The Palace

I used to work for an art supply company and after we would shoot photographs of paint squirts or blobs on a canvas for catalog covers, the canvas was chucked into what we affectionately called The Cage. In between designing catalogs, it was often my job to tidy up The Cage, and got to take home the “junk” canvas for my own projects. This one had a nice big pink swipe on it! I sketched out my idea in marker on the canvas.

This is after about an hour’s worth of work. I try to work in hour increments, a habit I started during the pandemic. The photo I worked from was one I took after seeing Star Wars IX at our little local theater, it has one screen and shows one movie a week and only costs about $5. I have a lot of fond memories there.

Started blocking in color. I work in a limited palette. Honestly you don’t need a ton of colors to achieve richness and depth. Also I have a rule when painting, I don’t use black out of the tube. If I want an area to be “black” I have to make it. It adds a layer of interest when you’re mixing Prussian Blue and Burnt Umber together, you can control the temperature of the black. Black out of the tube is often very stark, and it works with the flow of the painting if you build it from the raw materials of the other colors.

I’m pretty down and dirty with my painting set up. I used a sheet of plastic as my palette, only 2-4 brushes, and a teeny jar of spirits to clean the brushes when absolutely necessary.

Lights! Sometimes all you need are some well placed blobs. It’s a balancing act to figure out which areas you want to be painterly and the areas you want to be finite and exacting. I’m not great at perspective, so the marquee was a big “hold my breath on all the straight lines” area.

The finished project! If you think drawing letters is difficult, try oil painting on a diagonal. But, it was a fun challenge, and I like to think I improved a canvas that was left for garbage. This painting is going in my private collection, can’t sell this one quite yet.

Mermista Costume DIY Step by Step

When I got the idea for “A Frosta Christmas Special” I quickly knew I had to add another character. Mermista played a role in the original He-Man and She-Ra Christmas Special. Plus I grew up with the doll and she didn’t require as many costume pieces as the other characters. I start with a drawing. I’m a firm believer in if I can draw it I can do it.

Details of the Mermista costume parts.

My first illustration of the idea for Mermista’s costume.

Princess Mermista of the Mer Kingdom or Salineas…but she sounds suspiciously French.

You don’t need a lot of money or expensive materials to make a quality costume. The wig I ordered from eBay for $11. The bracers were made from watercolor paper that I glued together and covered with foam. I attach the foam with Elmer’s spray adhesive and coated with Weldbond glue. Then painted with acrylic and pearlized paint. The final coats I sponge on since I don’t own an airbrush.

I use a heat gun, thick craft foam, and a dress form to create the base.

Sketching with pencil.

Adding thin foam bits and plastic bobs with spray adhesive and super glue.

Cut away the excess foam.

Bracers ready to be primed! Looks like Mardi Gras.

Primed and ready for pearlizing! Mermista is taking shape.

In both the cartoon and on the doll, Mermista had a necklace. It’s no water-squirting fish, but I thought vintage plastic pearls and a teardrop crystal would do the job admirably. I used to make jewelry so it’s a delight to put a handful of the thousands of beads I own to use.

I cut apart a crushed velvet secondhand sweatshirt and traced an old swimsuit to make the bodysuit. There seems to be a shortage of fabric in our area so you have to make do. The skirt I made from chiffon, which is a nightmare to work with ha ha!

The belt was also layers of foam and glue and attaches with leather laces. One of the hardest parts to decipher is how the armor attaches to the fabric. I used metal snaps for this particular costume and the bracers slip on, so they are each one solid piece.