Inspiration: Subliminal

We had a great night of incredible food and even more incredible conversation with our good friends. They have hanging in their stairwell the painting I did of this little character. The unofficial title is “Louise-Eleanor Pashen dearly loved her new fashion.” It’s a blast of bright colors and line work. It was a lot of fun to paint and was one of the very first cartoons I ever rendered in acrylic. Just to see what it was like. I’m hooked, by the way.

I found a series of photographs of the painting-in-progress to give you a look-see into how it went…but to really appreciate it, you have to get to the end.

First things first. A quick sketch with whatever pencil my hand reached first and then the big background color.

A little more. At this point, I remember I was just trying to get a sense of what it’s like to paint with a canvas standing up as opposed to drawing with a piece of paper on a flat surface. Felt very, very odd.

Starting to get a personality. I also remember that at this point I’d decided I already did not like her dress. I fought with it all the way to the end.

Ah, now it’s all coming back to me. Talk about impatient. This close-up is to show you the first shot I took at the final outlining. That’s really what I had my sights set on. The color and the cartoon itself was the easy part…I mean, I see it in my head. It was the final outlining I was most concerned about. I had no idea what medium to use. I certainly wasn’t wanting to paint the black line work. If memory serves, this was charcoal (not a fan).

Okay, I pried the charcoal out of my hand, set the line work on the back burner and leaned into coloring the rest of this thing. Even now I’m looking at it and wondering what the heck I was thinking. You can see it was her hair I was the most focused on…obviously the cartoon’s leading feature (in my opinion, anyway). Starting to play with color depths, and paint strokes, and different features. Still very much like throwing with my other arm.

Okay, at this point I remember starting to calm down. I went to the best art store in our town and threw myself at the mercy of the court. I told them my problem, “I have to have a very solid, black, medium with which to outline a cartoon I’ve painted in acrylic. That’s the best I can do. Help.” After discussing a variety of ideas, Very Helpful Art Store Guy zeroed in on what I was trying to say (and failing to articulate it) and says, “…hey, wait a minute. Why don’t you just use a Sharpee?”

He’s my new hero.

This close-up shows the fun I was finally starting to have. I KNOW Sharpees! I’ve used them on my traditional cartoon work for about a hundred years. They aren’t my main drawing tool of choice (more on that top secret in another story soon), but I’ve reached for them in a pinch. And for a big over-sized cartoon with a big, fat attitude? We struck gold.

This is starting to feel like something I’d drawn by now. Twisting and turning and pressing and basically letting the Sharpee (a very big Sharpee, I should point out) make itself at home in my hand…this I was familiar with. By now I’d drawn lines I loved and lines I hated. Yep, this was me drawing.

Time to pry it from my cold, dead fingers. I was, in my opinion, past the point of diminishing return. And though I’m an artist (read: we’re allowed to hate everything we do without apology), I had to stop here and call it done. This was my first pass at a new medium. I even let the local elementary school have it for their annual fundraising auction, which is how it ended up in the home of our friends Carrie and Jim.

My original intent was to actually write out the title of the piece in the space making up her wild hair, hand-drawing some fun script: “Louise-Eleanor Pashen dearly loved the new fashion.” If I’m not mistaken, I left off the glasses. I think I did, anyway. I might have to call Carrie and Jim and ask them to check. I think she looks much better with the glasses on.

Come to think of it…I’m almost positive I never took a final photo of the final piece. I’ll have to ask them to snap one and send it over.

And get this: Several days after posting these images, I came across this photo of a neighborhood kid. Get a load of that ensemble.

I hunted down the date of the photograph and discovered I took it one week before I sketched the Louise-Eleanor. Talk about the subconscious having its way, huh?

And here are the paints…some of the paints, that is…I use.  And don’t think for one minute I don’t see them over in their place in my studio staring at me just daring me to start this all over again.

Because I’m this close to starting this all over again.