Psycho Painting

It ain't too pretty, is it? Nope, not in the slightest. But the painting isn't done and I thought I'd take the time to post one of those 'work on progress' images which some people have been asking me about. This is one of a series of four paintings based on the dreamworld levels of Psychonauts.

The image is unique in the fact that the color black plays a large part in its creation. For that reason I left it to the last, choosing to fill in the figures and colors completely before doing this final step. For one thing, it helps free me up to experiment with colors and shapes because any mistakes will be blotted it with an opaque black at the end. Also, it's more fun. You see, I've noticed that in general black can make an amazing difference to a painting. So I thought it would be fun to have something about 99% done, and looking pretty terrible. And then, almost as if by magic, black is applied to the canvas and the image springs to life.

So don't feel like you're hurting my feelings by saying that you don't like the above picture. I don't like it either... yet.

Here's another.


I've started adding the black on this one, and then remembered to take the shot. Ideally I'd have taken a photo of this one with a white border, but it's a little late for that now. No matter, you get the idea. Notice too that the black looks pretty bad as well. I'm going to need a few coats of it to get the inky effect that I'm aiming for.

One other thing. I tried to stretch the canvas to get rid of those stupid sags in the corner but to no avail. There's a painters product similar to alum which you can apply as well which is supposed to stretch canvas tightly and I think I've used about half a tube with no significant improvement. I hated to throw the canvas away, and so decided to use it no matter what the flaws were. It was the right choice, but I really was counting on the paint having some affect as I applied it. If it's doing anything, it's so small I can't tell.

I'll post photos when the paintings are complete so you can see the amazing difference black does. The other two planned paintings for this set are very similar in composition and I think they'll be quite striking when seen together.