I did a project a while back (January and February) with the intents of starting a blog and posting my progress. I’m a bit late on starting the blog, but here’s the whole project:
My husband’s friend wanted a painting for his Dungeons and Dragons groups. Apparently that’s a thing (and kind of a really cool thing, I can’t think of being part of a group that loved what they did so much they got paintings done). So he gave me a list of the 7 people (outside of himself, but he’s the guy that reads and doesn’t have a character). I did some preliminary sketches of the characters (and somehow totally forgot to design one until the painting). These are those sketches:
Then I did some very basic background sketches just so I could see what kind of thing he was going for:
There are more, but those are the ones I could find. He liked the one with eyes overlooking everyone (him) and the castle. So that’s what I went with and planned. Somehow I always end up doing math when I do art. Always.
I’m still working on learning composition. Honestly, I get it a little bit, but I have a long way to go. So, like any sane person housesitting/dogsitting for their sister-in-law, I gathered my niece’s toys and staged my painting. I showed this to the person who wanted the painting and they were definitely amused:
And that’s when I started to paint:
And eventually I finished. Let me tell you, it’s hard to take pictures of paintings. You need really amazing lighting and probably no flash. I’m not good at it. But I tried.
My supplies weren’t great (my better paints are in storage, I’ll be able to get to them in a few months). I took forever. The better I get, the faster I’ll be. In the mean time, it’s the nice start to a side hustle.
-Smudged
The Painted Spreadsheet 