Melanie Pinup 36″ x 36″ Acrylic on Canvas, in progress. Follow along as I paint this 50’s style pinup.
Posted on December 28, 2015 by Leonard Rooney - Artwork in Progress
Melanie Pinup 36″ x 36″ Acrylic on Canvas, in progress. Follow along as I paint this 50’s style pinup.
I start out with a careful, full size drawing, using my studio photo as reference.
Next, I transfer my drawing onto the canvas using a blue Saral Transfer Paper.
Now I begin the actual acrylic painting. Famous 50’s pinup painter, Gil Elvgren, would have used oils for this, but I’m interested to see how close I can follow his look with the acrylics, given that they don’t blend as well. I start off with a simple first pass which quickly blocks in the colour with rough shading and limited detail.
I continue blocking in flesh tones.
This dress is going to take a while. I start in with the light blue for the predominant background colour along with a warm grey with some black details for the foliage. Together, these colours will be giving the dress most of its shape.
Finished the first colour pass on the dress.
Now I start in with the more colourful palette, starting with a red-orange.
I continue adding the orange, yellow and pink to complete the dress pattern. I then paint in the light blue shoes. Everything is now blocked in and I can start detailing.
The detailing pass begins with brightening up the dress colours with a second coat of each colour. I then glaze in some warmer skin tones while adding more definition around the neck and hand. I also start in on the guitar’s head stock.
Now things slow down while adding details. Also, the weekend is over and I’ve got to get back to work on other projects 🙁 But I do get some work done on the martini glass, the dress and tightened up on the shape of the guitar.
More work on the dress and guitar.
The dress is pretty well done now, next I’ll be moving on to everything else. Still considering if I want to leave that background white or not. Normally I would start by painting in the background because its colour can effect the perception of the main subject’s colour. It’s a tough decision that could be hard to unmake at this point.
Almost done now.
Finished!