January 23rd, 2008

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Apologies in advance to Bob Ross, but not too genuine of one, because let's face it, he's doing pretty well for himself, and posthumously nonetheless. I can't believe I spelled posthumously correctly on the first go. But I made a pretty picture, la dee da, and if you travel along with me I'll show you how I did it so that you can make one too...should you care to do so.

Alright, so let's get started. You guys all remember when I "revitalized" those frames, right? Sure you do, you special cabana boys of hope for the future. It's right here in case you don't. I'll wait.

The culmination of that article entailed me waiting around while a trickle of suggestions came in as to what I should fill that frame with. Er, "as to with what I should fill that frame" should I care to avoid ending a sentence with a preposition. Well, none of the suggestions tickled my fancy, so sorry if you were one of the ones who suggested I wedge it up my bum sideways or somesuch analogous endeavour; it's not going to happen. The last sentence contained a semicolon.

I chose to paint a split piece of wood over whatever you suggested.

 

 

After splitting some wood in my yard I was momentarily captivated by the cool striations and excellent color variations and patterns in a few of the pieces. So, heyo, get over it - I had a moment of zen an communing with nature. I took a digital photo of one of the more dramatic split logs (see above) and brought it into Ye Olde Photoshop.

Alright, McLovin', you can lodge your jokes about me Photoshopping my wood firmly into the comments section at the end of the article. Anyway, the goal would (wood?) be to have a subtle abstract field of interesting naturally occurring textures. And if you slather the paint on real thick-like, it gets very physically textural on the canvas.

So, the easiest way to get it semi-accurate is to set up a grid. I won't bother you with the simple math (1 + 1 = hopefully 2.0) but if you can set it up you already know how to do so, and if you don't then it'll take longer than a few sentences here to teach you. The next step is to actually set up your canvas. In my case the canvas is actually a flat piece of board: masonite. It's a bit heavy but I like the smooth surface and rigid texture no jokes here either please. I got a huge board for somewhere between $3 and $15, I don't quite remember, but I had them cut it into quarters at the store and only use one. So whatever it was it was really cheap unless you're dirt poor in which case it's only a slight investment.

 

 

Having a big bucket of primer around is handy, because you have to prime the canvas. Put a big X across the back of it, and go around the perimeter. This will discourage warping. The moisture and its subsequent drying can warp masonite something fierce. So just...freaking...okay. Just. Put a big white X on the back. It's not hard.

Then when that's dry put two coats of white on the front. I say two coats because the masonite is a thirsty beyotch of a material and it will suck up your paint and discolor it if it's not properly sealed with primer.

 

 

And then you will spend nigh on three hours cleaning out your brush.

 

 

 

Alright, now here comes the fun part just kidding here's where you spend a long time drawing a meticulous grid on your board canvas so that you can transcribe the printout of whatever picture it is you're using, assuming you're not using a picture of wood. By the way I DIGITALLY ENHANCED the darkness of the grid lines here via the aforementioned Photoshop so that you could see them more easily. You should absolutely draw the lines in the lightest pencil possible (ink soaks through paint). If they're too dark you will waste lots of time painting over them because they will be easily seen through lighter colors. So there, Francis.

Now for a big animated GIF (pronounced like the peanut butter or else you're wrong) showing the progression of the painting.

Here's the thing. Just start putting down paint. Who cares? If you don't like it you can always paint over it. Just have fun. Start by aligning various recognizable elements in your printout grid to the corresponding squares on your masonite board. Easy peasy. Paint 'em in and go from there. It's just like doing a paint-by-numbers.

 

 

As you can see above, I eventually realized that just straight brown would be a little dull, so I started to improvise colors. I also get a little bothered that the bottom right looks like a demon horse skull.

After that, I eventually realized the whole bollocks-ridden idea was dull, so I smeared paint across the whole canvas and finger painted an abstract landscape. Didn't catch it on your way scrolling through the article (slacker)? Let me say it again: it looked boring, so I finger painted a random landscape on top of the entire board in the span of - maybe - an hour.

 

 

I'll show you in a second, calm down. It's okay. So, the painting done I brought it back to the frame, ensured it fit (by which I mean I lopped a sexteenth (sixteenth) of an inch off each side with my pocket knife that it had gained because of extra paint width), and then staplegunned that mofo in there tighter than Hillary stuffing the ballot boxes. Or if you take offense to that, tighter than Ron Paul supporters stuffing the e-ballot boxes. Happy, ma'am?

Getting close to finished, the only thing left is to hang it. So I purchase a set of hanging equipment, bringing the grand total for this entire project somewhere between $9 and $20. You can barely get a poster of John Belushi on a college dorm wall for that little, and I got a framed Carl Huber original! HOO-AH!

The problem with the hanging screws or me I haven't decided yet is that they ended up wrecking the front of the frame just a bit. They're 1/32" too long and poked out of the front of the frame with their tiny little shiny silver points. Balls! So after screwing in the wire hangar holders I had to use my dremel tool (screw you spell check, dremel is too a word) and grind those down flat. I'm sure glad I didn't pay for this frame.

 

 

That being done I just dabbed up the holes with a spot of black paint. No one will notice except the people who read this article and then see it in person, because they'll be looking for them just to point and laugh. Oh by the way, wear eye protection when grinding metal.

 

 

So there's the painting! I humbly place it somewhere on the converging laps of Dr. Seuss, Roger Dean, and Vincent Van Gogh. What do you think? Hah, bear in mind that I have no particular attachment to this - I smeared it together in a fit of "oh, bother"

 

 

You can click the above image for the painting larger. No spiders. Promise. The size is, again, about 2 feet tall by 3 feet wide.

 

 

And finally a little tip-or-trick that I liked doing. Never use a color straight out of the tube as the final color on your canvas. It's boring. But beyond that, if you're going for a little schizophrenic feel, use the canvas yourself as the mixing palette. For the above green/yellow mountainside I put two lines of paint on the table under the masonite, unmixed, scooped them up with my fingers, and smeared them across the area. It let them become mixed into yellow-green, but it also allowed the constituent parts to show through. And that's kind of nice if you're going for that look.

So...whaddaya think?

The End
 

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