This one was very different. Almost always, I start with paint, then add a figure. Here I drew the figure on blank canvas to start, then wasn't sure how to start painting it. I was scared to treat it like paint by numbers, so I tried to keep it loose by first spraying some rough red on there, then using a very watered-down blue to rough in some shapes, so I wasn't too precious right out of the gate.
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I tried to paint the hands like they were 3D hands, mimicking how a brush might move over a spatial form.
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I decided to keep it loose and block in the body. I was still not sure where this was going.
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A ghost dick. Maybe it's done?
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No. I never know when to stop, so I started introducing a lighter shade of blue. The ghost has vanished.
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Detail shot.
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This was where I decided it was time to paint over this canvas. I didn't like it. Sometimes when you've decided there is nothing to lose, you get the most brave…
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So I grabbed my biggest homemade brush, which spans 20 inches, and quickly raked two strokes of black, intuitively assuming I was just going to black out the whole piece. However, I took a step back and said, “Well, that's done. Nice work.”
