I had been wanting to try the tracing method that my friend/roommate Olive has been using a lot. I loved the way you can more accurately portray your subject, which I often struggle with. I know tracing may be viewed as ‘cheating’ but I still want to try it out. Previously, I bought a cheap projector and it didn’t really work out. I asked her to show me how she does it, and it takes quite a few steps and tweaking the pages on photoshop. I tried it, printed out 6 pages that matched the size of my board (51cm x 57cm) in A4 pages, and started to trace. The tracing alone took me 5 hours. I realized that tracing was a skill too. I am the furthest from a neat or precise person, but sometimes I have bursts of perfectionism, which is very annoying. Anyway, after a long day I finally have a pencil tracing over a messy wash of green - I also tried to mix a good green ( I am very inexperienced in mixing acrylic/oil colours, so this was a first) and tried using a sponge roller that I just purchased. It didn’t work well or make an even application at all, but it turns out I kind of liked the way it dispersed messily on the board, and you can see where it all went wrong - where the paint was stubborn and sticking to the board, and where I threw water in there in frustration. It is all in there. It will be mostly covered up in the end but still, it is good to know the imperfections are there since the beginning.
For the image itself, I debated on what to trace. I know I wanted to include an element of the cartoon imagery I’ve been looking at - the wolves and the rabbits - but I thought it would be too much copying if I drew directly from the screenshot. I also wanted to challenge myself to do something with more perspective - I’m tired of painting flat cartoony images! I wanted to be more than that. It is a frustration I’ve always had. A criticism Alex provided last year was that I was painting in local colour - thats why my paintings come off as cartoons. I feel like I’m constantly trying to grow up, but the problem is I stopped growing when I hit 12 years old. So I am going to challenge myself this year. I’ve been coming into university and trying to progress everyday, and it feels like I am not achieving much. I did go into the printing room and sign up for an induction though (there wasn’t space online but luckily in person we were able to secure places) so that should be quite interesting.
As for how I am actually going to paint this - I have no idea. I really, really want t use thick paints this time, perhaps even all (water-soluble?) oil colour, even though I have no idea how to use them. Elena is experienced in acrylics, but I don’t even have that to guide me. When I tried to paint the bike painting, I tried to use thicker paint but it still ended up looking quite flat. I hope I improve. Of course, I am scared but that is just me being pathetic. I’ll just jump straight into it.
