It was made on a short time notice of ten days for the A-Bun-Dance event on Nov 22nd at the Lure nightclub in Hollywood. Totem animal was the theme, the Hollywood Burner crowd it's my personal favorite!
As usual I've started with a white canvas digitally. I used some photo elements due to the lack of time such as the blanket, some of the wolf hair on the head-dress over the left of the face, the lips and some fur on the bottom right. They are the only retouched photo elements. The rest was painted from scratch digitally with Photoshop CS5. I used photo reference for the woman's face and hands, yes that means I copied it, but it was still painted from zero. I added and painted the pattern on the blanket and other elements to the piece. I did my best to blend it together digitally and smoothly before it was printed on a canvas.
After the canvas was printed I've painted live on it with acrylic to add some final details, extra depth, texture and contrast. There is no room for mistakes with acrylic, you can't click Command + Z to undo, there is no undo LOL.
It was challenging explaining all of this to some annoying drunk people at the event who doesn't even know what a Cintiq is and have no clue about art techniques.
Click on the word Cintiq for a link and a better explanation if you still have no clue what that is.
Sure, I can just say mixed media like a lot of artists prefer to say. There is no need for a detail explanation in the art process. Still, I feel compelled to make it clear I'm not just painting over a photo like some folks believe. Maybe 35% it's a painted over a collage photo, not everything. That itself it's a whole new can of worms in the art community. The more traditional and conventional artists are not cool with the idea of painting over some photo elements. All thou to their criteria it's OK to "copy" a photo as long is all done from zero. There is a lot of controversy about this subject, clearly it doesn't bother me. I only think of Photoshop and the digital era as just another "tool". If I didn't know how to paint period I could never have "created" this piece as I did. Art is creation. Whatever tools and technology are available nowadays to create are just tools and I'm on board with the latest. After drawing and painting my whole life since I was a kid, learning techniques, learn how to have a solid drawing foundation, having a successful career in the animation industry etc etc I don't think I need to prove anything to anyone. In fact I'm doing a whole gallery using this digital / acrylic on canvas mix media. Some day I'll finish all my 12 pieces and I'll let you all know.
Like Robert Downey Jr. said..."listen, simile, agree and then do whatever the fuck you were gonna do anyway."
Hope you like it folks.
Cheers
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