My recent series of paintings have been life-size and larger figurative paintings. In my recent painting titled Eclipse (36” x 36”), I’ve stayed with a monochromatic theme of blues, and our figure is painted a bit larger than life size. In our first installment of CANVAS WRAP we’re going to start at the beginning of a painting, rather than focus on just specific items. Over the course of the next few articles we’ll focus on individual components and discuss the workings of other parts of the human figure; hands, torso, hair, and touch base regarding various textures.

I photograph all my own reference materials and subject matter – in this case our model Brooke in front of a prop I created by cutting a circle in a piece of black Gatorboard. From those I chose my final painting reference image. The color photo has been manipulated in the computer and I’ve decided to paint her in blue-violet hues. Once I’m happy with what I see on screen I print it out as a large high-quality print that I will refer to as I paint, and also as a smaller print that will fit in my projector.
The transfer of the image to canvas is pretty straight forward, but at the same time it’s important to get it right. I project my image onto canvas and draw her lightly with a blue watercolor pencil. I always try to draw the image with a pencil that is closest to the color I intend on painting. Watercolor pencils are my preferred option because they tend to disappear when painted over, they’re easily erased, and they’re compatible with acrylic-based paints (as opposed to lead or wax-based pencils). Take your time in the drawing process to make sure you draw everything that is important, but at the same time try not to draw so much that it becomes a drawing. I try to include some light shading as reference points in areas where there are no distinct lines. An example of this would be ribs, abdominal area, shoulder, variables in the cloth, and shadows.

Once I’m satisfied with the drawing, my next step is to start creating my acetates. Very little masking was used for this painting. Rather, she’s masked almost entirely with 5-mil acetate assisted with the use of Artool templates. We’ll get into some of this later. For now, using clear tape I’ve joined a couple pieces of 30” x 40” acetate together to make a sheet large enough to cover the entire painting. Next, I trim the acetate piece down to 36” x 36” which is the exact size of my canvas. The canvas is then laid flat and the acetate is positioned and taped in place with masking tape to hold it in place. (Properly planned, this entire painting will be created using one sheet of acetate.)