This is the illustration process of a personal piece I did as a demo for my Materials and Techniques II class at SCAD Atlanta, Spring 2011.
Concept:
I gave the students the broad topic of doing a character illustration of a “manamimal”; a cross between a human and an animal or somehow personifying an animal. Most of my “paying” work is conservative and corporate. So here is was another chance to do something completely different and stretch my creative boundaries as an artist. At first I thought of doing a version of a Clawdeen Wolf Doll of Monster High shaving her werewolf legs, since my 10 year old daughter just loves Monster High and werewolves. But that was just a little strange and I could not figure out how to show a female wolf shaving her legs without it looking posed and not too sexy. Besides, I did want to show my innocent daughter the final painting and wanted it to be safe for her. So you say seeing this black widow lady with her hand covering her bare chest was not much better, your probably right. Oh well. I liked the idea of a half woman half Black Widow to just be scary and gross and put a bit of a narrative to it. It has nothing to do with my own encounters of the opposite sex, just an image in my head that had to get out. The seductive female has fooled and trapped her male victim in her old bedroom and transformed herself into this deadly hideous creature.
Research:
The inspiration for the assignment/technique came from the famous and über talented and successful illustrator, Chris Payne. Mr. Payne does wonderful portraits for the covers of Time Magazine, backs of Reader’s Digest covers, children’s books, his own versions of manamimals and much more. Even when I saw him demo this technique in person back in 1993 at Portfolio Center he stressed the importance of reference. Take the time to find copyright free photos or take photos yourself of your reference. Don’t copy your reference just look at it to remind you of what reality looks like rather than relying completely on your third eye. Also, the best hand model around that I know is me. My hands are ALWAYS available, don’t complain and are free.
Technique:
The students had to follow a precise order of many different mediums in mostly transparent layers to create there manamimal. Chris Payne, perfected this and is appropriately named: “The CF Payne Technique” It’s no huge secret since Mr. Payne is famous for demoing this technique in front of countless students all across the nation, published in an old Step-by-Step magazine, and where he teaches illustration at Columbus College of Design, where he is the chair of the Illustration Department. I’ve posted about other paintings I’ve done in this technique here, here and here. To my students I give a very detailed materials list and even a list of steps to follow. If you would like a copy of those e-mail me, but the BEST way to learn it from me is to take my class at SCAD. Learn more about the SCAD Illustration Degrees.
Process:
1. After doing a detailed color comp in Photoshop above. I printed out the file and transferred it using homemade graphite paper to 14″ x 14″, 500 Series Strathmore Illustration Board, vellum surface. I taped off my 12″ x 12″ image area with 3M blue safe release house painters tape. I perfected my details while transferring it with graphite and colored pencil. I then spray fixed the drawing with workable fixative and sealed it with a thin coat of water down matt medium. This makes the board non-absorbent which is crucial for the paint layers to follow.
2. I then painted in acrylic the lightest values of the highlights in the scene. This sets the base color values of the highlights that can always be rubbed down to. No details at this point and I was not concerned with painting over the lines in the black spider parts since I was going to go over that with an opaque coat of ink later.
3. Next ,applied some watercolors for the midtones to start giving the body some form. I would lay down an even flat coat of color and then lift out the watercolor with a brush and paper towel to reveal the acrylic highlights underneath. This is a subtractive process and takes a bit of practice since it’s not a very intuitive way or painting. It’s something you just have to see happen to understand fully. Check this 2 part video of Mr. Payne himself doing this process. To see how does the watercolor skip to 19:48 of the video.
4. After that I use a micron india ink pen to outline the details any areas that the form color is black or VERY dark. In this case it was the spider body and the hair. This line was also useful on the inner parts of the spider body once it was covered with ink I could still see the line details.
5. Then I filled in the black areas with waterproof india ink. I prefer Dr. Ph. Martin’s Black Star, but most any india ink will do. You might need to do a couple of coats to get it super black.
6. This is a bad iPhone photo of the next scary step. With a brush I apply a purplish oil wash over the entire piece for darker shadow unification. It’s a mixture of mostly Dioxazine Purple and neutralize it a bit with Permanent Green Light oil paint. Thin it to a watery but not runny consistency with 100% mineral spirits. I prefer using Gamsol. Wait for it to dry until the surface is dull, then lift out the hightlights with a kneaded eraser leaving the purple in the shadows. This unifies the shadows in the whole piece and leaves an interesting gritty texture to the surface. The photo here shows the background and some areas of the body already removed with a kneaded eraser. The dark specks in this oil wash were from using an old oil mixture that had dry up a bit. Better to use a fresh mixture in a glass jar, but these specs were easily removed with a kneaded eraser.
7. Here is more of the oil wash removal. The oil wash colorizes the black ink and could be used as a dark mid-tone of the black.
8. Before you go any further with details with colored pencil and acrylics the surface needs to be prepped with some extra colored pencil grabbing tooth. For the longest time CF Payne has used a retouch spray varnish that was intended for traditional photo retouching. That exact spray has been discontinued and this Suregaurd Retouch Vellum Spray took it’s place. It’s super toxic like most varnish sprays, but gives the surface a fine texture that takes colored pencil very well. Spray the whole painting in a ventilated spray booth or outside. Using Workable Fixative or clear gesso don’t have the same effect, but I heard of people using it instead with OK results. Then this is where the piece really comes alive with the details in sharp Prismacolor Pencils. You can correct past painting imperfections and add small highlights and details to finish it off.
9. More Prismacolor Pencil details. If you are better at painting in acrylics than colored pencil you can add more opaque details to the piece to brighten up areas that the oil wash dulled down. All along I wanted to have a warm light coming from a window on the right and a cool light coming from the left. (If you are still reading this, send me an email with the word “manamimal” and I’ll send you an 8×10 print of my work for free.) With the colored pencil I was able to accentuate that with cream and a light blue colors.
Final:
I added some dark reds to the black spider body and built up my highlights with colored pencil and acrylic. For the final highlight touches I used acrylic gesso for the highlights instead of acrylic paint because gesso is naturally dries to a dull finish that matches my painting surface and it’s very opaque. Highlights only with colored pencils would not be bright and pop enough so paint was necessary to add these final gross factor glistening highlights to this dark and deadly lady of the night.
It’s a complicated, but quick process once you understand it. This whole painting took about a week and a half to do while doing MANY other things. It teaches a lot about the properties of each of the 5 or so mediums. Once you have done and understand this exact process you can then modify the techniques to your own liking.
Comments and questions are welcomed!
