This is my most recent finished “masterpiece.” I’ve never before made something this impressive in my entire life, and I’m thrilled that I was able to actually paint it! It all started with an idea that one of my friends had, then he asked me if it was something I would be able to do.
It wasn’t just any custom painting, either! Of course he wanted me to paint it on a HUGE canvas that was nearly 4′x5′ , this thing is massive! So here’s what I did… cause I knew I couldn’t afford a canvas so big: I went to home depot and bought a couple pieces of 1″x1″ and cut them at 45 degree angles so I could make the “stretcher bar” for the canvas…
Once the stretcher bar was assembled, I stapled the canvas in place using a cheap staple gun… and guess what, the canvas wasn’t even really canvas, it was a linen curtain my mom had pulled down and was going to throw away, but I salvaged it and look what it became!
One YEAR in the making, this painting was nothing short of a challenge! For many months I would completely ignore the painting, and try to find a way around it, because I never painted people before, much less POP-ICONS that were supposed to be recognizable!
After spending so much time and energy fiddling around, I finally put the effort into this painting that it always needed. Of course it took me a while to get it all completed, and there wasn’t anything telling me “this is when it will be done,” I just let my paintbrush tell me what to do. Add a gentle stroke here, paint over a smudge and a small mistake here, fill in the details here and there… and BAM! The painting came to life!
As I mentioned before, this was unlike any painting I have ever completed in my entire life, and I’m glad to know that this was the first of many larger-than-life portraits, and it even instilled in me a returned interest in the old renaissance paintings that were so angelic and beautiful.
There’s plenty more to say about this painting, but as the saying goes, “a picture’s worth a thousand words” and all the details speak for themselves here.