Camul may be on his last leg

I had a marathon painting session this afternoon (O.K., it was only a few hours), and Camul may (may) be finished. Except for the varnish, of course. I’ll look at him again after I haven’t for a while, and I’ll post him post varnish.

Free Valentines for all you procrastinators

It’s February 12. You do know that Valentine’s Day is Monday, right? And you’ve already bought the card, right? And mailed it so it can get to where it’s going on time, right?

Right?

Yeah. I didn’t think so.

O.K. Fine.

I’ve uploaded some free Valentines for you to download and print. Here are four choices to pick from, all 4¼” wide x 5½” tall:

Download (313 KB)
Download (296 KB)
Download (243 KB)
Download (260 KB)

I’ve tested them, so they should be O.K., but if you have any problems with the download, just let me know.

As far as delivery goes, you’re on your own. You’ll probably have to hand deliver it now. Sorry about all that “face-to-face” stuff, but I can’t do everything for you.

Another day of painting Camul

This should give a better idea of the direction the painting is headed (compared to the underpainting post). The underpainted background is overpainted (is that a word?), and now the sky is blue/purple and the sand is yellow/tan. Hopefully it makes more sense now.

I noticed as I was painting that I’m not all that satisfied with how I gessoed the board. I think I laid the gesso on too thick, and all that prickly texture that I had in my other animal rots paintings isn’t there. So the underpainting doesn’t show through as much as I would have liked and the way I would have liked.

Here’s a close-up of the sky in Jeeraffe (on the left) compared with a close-up of the sky in Camul. The gesso texture is definitely thicker than I want it.

I hope the end result still works because it’s too late to do anything about it now short of starting over. And I won’t be doing that.

Camul painting in progress

The progression of Camul: Report #1

I decided to scan Camul in as I go, and I’m trying to line up the images into one file in Photoshop so I’ll be able to put an animation together of the progress. I’ll post that animation here when he’s finished.

This first image is just the original sketch transferred to the birch wood where I’ll be doing the final painting.

Not much to see here.
Just move along.

This second image probably looks a little odd, but it’s just at the underpainting stage. If I gessoed the board the way I hope I did (and I’m hoping I did), there will be enough texture so when I start painting subsequent layers, parts of this underpainting will still be visible in the valleys of the gesso texture. At least, that’s the plan.

When I decide to use an underpainting, I try to underpaint the complimentary color of what the final color of the area will be, as in, the final sky will be purple with a yellow underpainting, and the final sand will be yellow with a purple underpainting.

In this case, the two colors I’m using for the final painting (purple and yellow) are also complimentary colors to each other. I’m a little worried it might get boring with too much of a lack of color, so I might have to interject colors that really shouldn’t be there. I’ll deal with that dilemma when it happens.

Valentine’s Day stuff

So Valentine’s Day is coming up in a couple of weeks, and it just happens that some of the stuff in The Rot’s Love store have hearts on them. Imagine that. So guess what? I’m going to start putting that stuff on sale.

First up, iPad cases.

A red one with the spider

Another red one that’s a little grungy

And yet another red one with some hand writing

All of these cases will be on sale for the lowest price Zazzle will let me, and tomorrow I’ll add something else to the list.

And if that weren’t enough, orders over $50 qualify for free shipping! Just enter the code FREESHIPFORU when you check out.

Obviously, The Rots love you.