The Aberzombie Story

Posted

Aberzombie - painting, 24x30in, acrylic no canvas

A stupidly annoying amount of work and time went into this rather simple image.

Intended Procedure:

  • Spray background
  • Trace projected pencil lines
  • Paint lettering and moose

Actual way things went:

  • Spray background
  • Trace projected pencil lines
  • Paint moose
  • Paint embarrassingly hideous approximation of lettering
  • Make heroic effort to rescue lettering by painting orange around edges of letters
  • Give up and have DeeDee paint white over lettering down to tape above moose
  • Have DeeDee feather edges of white after realizing tape edge will be glaringly visible through spray-paint
  • Spray half a gallon of frustratingly transparent orange over white
  • Cut stencil for lettering
  • Spray letters through stencil
  • Make heroic effort to rescue lettering overspray by painting orange around edges
  • Mix orange with white and spray entire canvas, making little effort to avoid moose
  • Spray another half gallon of orange
  • DeeDee graphites the back of a print-out of the lettering and transfers the pencil lines to the canvas
  • DeeDee paints the lettering and repaints the moose
  • I sign the image, hang it up for a photo, fervently vowing never to paint lettering again.

Graphiting:

Process shot of applying graphite to back of artwork to transfer

Using a bar of graphite (pencil lead) on the back of an image allows you to create something like carbon-paper. This carbon can then be taped to another surface. Going over the lines on the front with a pen or pencil or nib, will transfer the pencil lines to the surface.