Being from elsewhere

Step 1

I transferred my prepared sketch onto the aluminum-plastic composite material using a projector. This allows me to center and size the projected image perfectly so that it fits on the board. I redrew the image with a pencil on the white side of the board, which is already prepared in the base. The great thing is that you can buy the board already prepared like this, so after redrawing you can start creating right away.

Step 2 

I start creating the background. I would like to make this image part in color and part in black and white. In terms of color, I'd like to have purples and burgundy colors in the background, maybe down to the pink. So I mixed the necessary shades of colors and applied them to the background. I'll use PPG solvent based paints and Inspire airbrush Colours for most of the painting. Only on some things will I use water based paints.

Step 3

Once I have the colored background roughly done, I start following the picture sketched with a pencil to cover the picture with tape where I don't want the color later. I decided to try the crack-effect paint. I have crack-effect spray available for testing. I've never worked with this paint before, so I'll at least give it a try. Anything that I don't need to have sprayed with crack-effect base, I cover with tape just in case.

Step 4

Once I have everything covered with tape, I apply black crack-effect spray everywhere in the background. The edges of the image will then show the colour I applied earlier as a base, which is purple and burgundy.

Step 5 

I have sprayed the crack-effect paint and I am waiting to see what happens. Actually, nothing much has happened. The paint did crack in some places, but it created fairly small cracks, and in places nothing happened. And the black paint wasn't black at all. So it didn't work out, can't help it, I'm going to redo the plan. 

Step 6

Experiment and see what comes out. I put on gloves so I can spread the paint differently over the surface. For my experiment, I'll use water-based paints by Createx. I'll spread the paints mainly in areas where the crack-effect paint didn't show much. In places, I'll bring the spray gun back in and create an abstraction in the background that combines craquelure, splatter application, airbrush and I even used a water-based acrylic marker. I wasn't caught off guard by the failure. Art is a game!

 

Step 7

Here you can see that I also used a piece of the box as a template. I'm trying to achieve as interesting a background as possible. 

 

Step 8

Here you can see the final background for the image. The crackles are quite small and probably won't be visible in the photo. But they are there in places. The image is 100 x 100 cm, so some of the details will only be enjoyed by the viewer after closer inspection. When using the airbrush technique, quite often the colours come out after the painting has been varnished, when the image takes on a completely different dimension.

 

Step 9

Start painting the face. As always, I start with a medium dark grey and in places I model the volume of the face with black. In the background, you may notice that I took the liberty of lightly adding geometry using a stencil I cut out on my plotter. 

 

Step 10

I use several airbrush guns at work, each with a colour I need. I usually have the most important colours ready, at the moment black, two greys and white. This way I can apply the colors in any order I want, or I can even go back if I need to fix or add something. At the moment I'm starting to model the face with white. But at the same time I'm working on some areas with black.

Step 11

Here in this photo you can see my sketch. Sometimes it's good to keep an eye on it and check where the painting is going, as I let a lot of things develop right on the board. The sketch was done years ago as a suggestion for a tattoo. To this day, that image has not found its wearer, so I decided to paint it as a painting. After all, it would be a shame to have such a subject lying in a drawer.

Step 12

I am slowly coming to the end. I work through part by part, the same process each time: dark grey, then light grey, white and black. Occasionally I still go back and tweak-in some shapes that I'm not sure I like as they are. With the airbrush technique, it doesn't matter if you are painting a large or small image. The important thing is to achieve a perfect result. You alternate the colors according to your chosen process, if you don't like a particular thing, you simply adjust it by repainting it. And you edit until it's just right.

Step 13

Once the face is completed, the rest needs to be fine-tuned. At this stage, I've finished painting a dark shadow in the bottom left corner with a few light spots. My idea was that this creature is dressed in black and has what looks like a furry collar around its neck. I then added a few details In the painting itself with a white Montana marker. Montana is a manufacturer of mainly spray paints for graffitti artists. What I like about this paint marker is that I don't have to keep dipping the brush into the paint. I just take the marker and paint. The marker trace is always the same. I also added a white outline around the head at the top. It separated the head from the background, but also complemented the face nicely.

Step 14

The image is finished and ready to be sealed. But before that, it needs to be photographed properly. After all, the light in the workshop is not ideal and it is quite difficult to photograph the image after painting. I usually get a professional photographer to take the pictures. Such a photographer will take pictures of your work and then edit it so that the colours in the pictures of your paintings are as close to reality as possible.

The finished image can be found in the gallery, in the Grey Zone image file