Every artist, after learning many processes from other artists, eventually mostly copies the process of someone, and then tweaks it until it fits their their work style. I'm still tweaking mine, but it's pretty darn close to how I think I'm going to keep it. It lets me focus on the funnest parts (drawing and painting) while eliminating my least favorite step (transferring my drawing to board/canvas via tracing/carboning). It's more or less a process that Donato Giancola uses, with a couple lower-budget swaps and a slightly different use of drawing.
Anyway, here goes!
I'm starting from the point of having a drawing, already having completed my sketching, research, and reference photo-shoot phase. My project was painting a vampire. Here is the drawing I'll be turning into a painting.
I like putting a lot of time into my drawings, and I work WAY smaller than I paint. So, why throw all that effort out? Why lose something by having to do a trace/transfer? I'm just going to paint right on the thing!
I scan my drawing into Photoshop, fiddle with it if needed (you can see some digital manipulations I did in the drawing to fix my original cropping and some other background adjustments), and then blow it up to size and print it out.
As far as the printing, this is part of the process I hope to change in the future, but for now am constrained by budget. I like to paint at a minimum size of 18"x24", but the largest my printer can handle is 13"x19". So, I end up having to tile the image into a couple sections. Someday I want to get a large format printer so I can keep the drawing on a single sheet, because it will eliminate some extra touching up I have to do.
Once I have my enlarged tiled image, I soak the paper for a few minutes in water to let it expand, and while it's soaking, I liberally cover an 18"24" panel of masonite with matte medium. I take the wet drawing sections, and fit them together on the medium-ed panel. To make sure there are no air bubbles and everything is smooth, I cover the whole thing in plastic and go over it with a rubber printer's roller (a rolling pin can work here too), working from the center outward. A lot of the medium is going to get squeezed out the edges.
After the drawing is rolled out perfectly and before it's dry, I then brush on a layer of clear gesso.
I like the surface clear gesso leaves when it's dry; there's tooth if you want it but you can also sand it down very smooth. It has some grain, so it doesn't have as much of a plastic-ie feel as something like matte gel does.
The clear gesso goes on opaque but will dry nice and transparent. Or clear, if you will. In a gesso sort of way. Nomenclature!
I'll end up doing a couple coats of clear gesso, sanding in between.
The drawing is now sealed onto the masonite panel, and the surface is how I want it. you can see the seam and edges where I tiled. Those are gone in the finished product, but it is sort of a pain to deal with. A large format printer is definitely on my wish list.
Now, since I have this nice drawing to paint off of, my values are all right there! It's almost my underpainting all done for me. All I'm going to do is wash in some color with acrylic...
I use some different choices when doing my acrylic wash. For the background, the color I chose is close to what I'll be using in the final painting, but more saturated. I'd like some depth to the color and a subtle glowing quality.
For her skin, the color is NOT what I'll be using in the final, but since I'll be using cools, I painted the tones in warms. I want some contrast and subtle vibrance in her skin, and a feeling of multiple layers, which skin has.
So I start painting in oil over the wash. All I'm really doing now is modeling and texturing, as the values and forms are already there. I stick to a very limited palette.
This is as done as I'm going to take this particular piece in paint. As an illustrator, I work on tight schedules. The remaining steps I want to take would traditionally involve several glazes over the course of several days. I have the meat and bones of my painting here, with a lot of texturing and subtlety that are hard to get with painting all digital... but finishing digitally shaves TONS of time and can do different subtle effects that are harder to do in paint. I like to use the best of both worlds and finish my traditional painting digitally.
And this is the final image with my digital edits. All told, the piece took 3 days to paint, about a week all together with the drawing/photo shoot/painting. This falls in line with the timetable I aim for with my illustration work.
Man, this process seems crazy all laid out! But I love it.
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