Hey, Kids!, wanna see a Painting?...

I thought I would document the momentous occasion, of me doing my first painting since 2019...the year of what I like to call: "The Incident". I've done some drawing/designing since then, but never tackled a painting, and I honestly don't know why. Maybe it's because of artistic insecurities and the fact that I'm bombarded on a daily basis via social media, of all the great shit being produced by my friends and people I admire, that I'm kinda overwhelmed (insert sad music here) and...insecure, for the first time in my life. I have NO fucking idea how that happened, but I need to nip that shit in the bud, and start slinging paint again.

So, for my first painting in 4 years, I spared NO expense, when it came to materials/supplies...I bought the cheapest acrylic paints I could find, and a package of student grade 12"x16" canvases from Hobby Lobby and pulled out my 20 year old brushes...and a paint encrusted toothbrush. I was already to go! I just needed to decide what the hell I was going to paint! No digital shit for this guy, just old fashioned paint on canvas-warts and all..no photoshop adjustments to correct color, hue or saturation etc. ALL Fuck-ups will be left as is, and hung on the wall once it's completed...so I can stare at it everyday and focus on all the things I could/should have done differently-so I don't make the same mistakes on the next one. 

The Mighty Heroes Episode 7, original Broadcast date December 10, 1966 -Terrytoons CBS Television

Well, being being a monster and animation fan, I decided to do something from my childhood. I decided to do a warm up painting consisting of The Monsterizer from The Mighty Heroes!, one of my favorite animation villains from that series. So I figured, I'll start with him, and if all goes well-maybe I'll do a few others- produce a small series of quick and dirty paintings before I move onto something more ambitious. 

The Mighty Heroes originally aired back in 1966, as part of the Mighty Mouse package on CBS. While I never saw it during its original broadcast, I DID watch it religiously in the 70's as part of my after school activities, quickly becoming one of my all time favorite cartoons. It was created by the legendary artist & animator Ralph Bakshi during his time at Terrytoons.

Drawing inspiration from this quick ink drawing I did a few years ago, I thought I'd crop it and transfer it to the canvas real quick, so I could start slinging paint...before I changed my mind. Here is the result of that endeavor, warts and all.

(The following images are RAW photos, straight from the camera with NO color correction whatsoever -so you'll notice weird things happening to the color, along the way.)

The final pencil drawing transferred to the canvas. The Monsterizer, looking  like a crazed Rudy Guliani! I think he's ready for paint.

I didn't really having ANY idea what the color palette I was going to use for this painting, other than some 'greens'...because HE originally had a greenish tone in his skin, so I started with that. But what the hell was I going to do for the background? Well, how about using a complimentary color? Easy enough, I thought...purple. I chose a deep Lavender Purple to block in the background. In this image it looks MUCH darker than in reality.

Because I didn't want a flat purple background for my painting, I decided to 'activate' the space and give it a little life by breaking out the old toothbrush and spattering the area with Bright Magenta and White. So I masked the original drawing with paper (and tape) and began to splatter and flick the two colors onto the Purple background to give it a little more 'life'.

With the paper and tape removed, you get a better idea of what I was going for...it worked well enough for this exercise, so I wasn't going to fuss with it anymore. On to the next stage...

For this stage, and using the concept of moving from 'Back to Front', I thought I would lay in my the Light Yellowish Green Skintone, which would become the largest and brightest point of the painting-and dead center...not always a good thing when you're creating a painting. But what the hell, it's my first painting in four years, so I can make a mistake or two and move on.

And keeping with the concept of moving from 'Back to Front', I thought I would lay in a Parchment White for the: Hat Band, Eyes, Teeth and Neck Tie/Scarf Thingy (whatever the hell that thing is, and complete  the lightest parts of the painting.

Next, I thought it would be a good idea to block in the Dark Green of his Top Hat and Jacket ( making sure not to lose my reference lines in the process). I also decided to darken the band on the Top Hat. It's at this point where you can see the color of the background in this painting start to change and begin to 'POP' a little more. Color Theory is a magical thing sometimes.

Since I was 'pleased' with the basic colors of the overall painting at this point, I decided to start working on the details. So I started with his eyes and laid in a Dark Purple around his eyes.

Not being overly excited about the Dark Purple that I put down, I thought I'd add a Light Magenta 'eyebag' on top of that Dark Purple around the eyes.

With the Eyes, 'done' I decided to add some shadows to all the Parchment White areas to give things a little more volume. So I took some of the Parchment White with an added touch of Blue Grey to the white's of the Eyes, Teeth and  Neck Tie/Scarf Thingy. 

At this point, the painting is starting to come together and actually looking a little better. I added a Dark Grey Green for the shadows on the Top Hat and Jacket...but it doesn't show up in the photo unfortunately...I was too subtle with the color-but trust me, it's there. I also started to put in the Black line work, which really makes it start to 'POP'.

I then decided to knock down the overall skin tone by putting in Dark Yellowish Green Skintone for the shadow. I'm not entirely happy with the overall 'shapes' I put in....but whateve, you get the idea of what I was trying to do.

The final step was to put in a few White highlights to punch things up, give it a coat of Matte Finish to even things out, and call it a day. I decided to add my KEMO watermark to the front (digitally) for all my other Social Media bullshit postings...but I actually signed/dated the BACK of the painting....making it OFFICIALLY completed. 

Time to start the next one, and hopefully I'll be able to avoid some of the mistakes and missteps I did with this one!

Enjoy!

The Monsterizer

 

Johnny Gruelle and the Art of Beloved Belindy

My copy from 1960

In light of all our new-found 'wokeness', I thought I'd share this gem of a book from my collection of children's books that I have been collecting since my days in Art School. I haven't done any research on this one, but I feel pretty confident it's been 'cancelled' just like Disney's 'Song of the South', hidden from view in the hope that everyone will forget about it. And that's really a shame because it's your typical Raggedy Ann book (not that I'm a scholar in this area) and it's filled with wonderful little illustrations by Johnny Gruelle, whom I admire.

I was going to write a brief bio about Johnny Gruelle, but that's already been done. I figured, you could simply go to Wikipedia, like everyone else seems to do nowadays, so her's the link:

Johnny Gruelle

My goal for this post, was to share some beautiful illustrations from a book, most people never SEEN or heard of before...hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

 

Childhood memories/flashbacks, right here.

... And for the record, I had a Raggedy Andy doll when I was a little brat, and I HATED it. I spent all my time punching it, and throwing it down the stairs. I LOVED the way he tumbled down our stairs. I would rush down the stairs, pick him up and then PUNCH 'the shit' outta him...then do it all over again. He creeped me out . . . what can I say.