8/15/2007 - Big Robot Little Bear Painting
My wife and children are out of town this week and I figured that this would be a fantastic time to do some old fashioned painting. It's pretty rare that I pick up a real paint brush and usually when I do it's only to make a small little piece. I decided to go big this time and that really the only thing I decided before I started painting. I'm one of those guys that ususally does a ton of sketches but this time nothing was done before the paint brush touched the board. I decided to take pictures of the process too. I started with a simple background and added a tree line. 
Things were going well at this point so I decided to add more trees and a foreground. I then decided that I wanted a big robot in the background. At this point I realized I had made a mistake as trying to paint in something behind the trees was rather difficult and the robot shape I chose looked like a big phalic symbol. I nearly gave up at this point, but I decided to press on. After fleshing out the robot a bit more, I started to feel okay with the piece. I was having fun so that seemed more important than what I was actually producing. 
At this point it became clear that the robot needed something to do so why not have it destroying things with it's lazer eyebeams. I also needed someone or something running in terror, so I painted in Angry Bear. Bear is a character for a comic strip I have been working on for a while. He instantly became my favorite part of the piece. 
I finally added arms and tightened up some things and decided it was "done." 
I don't consider myself a serious painter nor is this a serious painting, but it was a lot of fun. I have mixed feelings about the results, but hopefully this will lead to something more in the future. For those curious, I used acrylic paints on illustration board. I have a ton of brushes and it took me a while to find which ones were working for me. This final picture is of my tools. The tupperware thing has been with me for a long time and there are layers and layers of paint in that thing going back to 1993. It's one of those comforting things to have around when creating. 
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