How a painting gets made
Example 1: - Oracle
This is the reference photo: My favorite model Lisa
The drawing is first done on newsprint.
The drawing is traced onto tracing paper. I then turn it over and go over the lines again. finally I use the backed up tracing to transfer the drawing onto the board ( gesso on Masonite).
In this case, I used frisket paper to mask out the drawing of the figure while I paint the background.
When the background is done the frisket paper is pulled up.
Here I masked out the clothing area and painted the skin.
Just the costume, hair and sword left to do.
Detail of the woman (Lisa is actually prettier that this).
Detail of the hand (I was very happy with the hand).
A poor photo of the final painting.
I no longer do as much masking as I use to do. Now I will usually just paint my background and then transfer the drawing and paint the foreground right over the background. This gives me softer edges that I generally prefer.
Example 2: - Lucifer (Light Bringer or Light Bearer)
Here is the very first sketch. The idea was a magician creating a ball of light. I don't really know where the idea came from. You can see that I knew from the start I wanted him in some sort of cavern.
On this next page I figure out a few details. The position of the hands was of particular importance. I work out a few things about the background and the costume. I also gave some thought on how to photograph a model for this painting but decided on my original hand placement and so did not need the photo idea. There are lots of notes written all over this one.
I rarely do small color sketches to figure out colors but this time I did. There are faint notes indicating that I wanted the belt gem to be green and the chest gem to be black.
This is of course the final.