(Concentration) Project #13, Guitarist In Space

For this project I made a painting of my best friend, Michael playing guitar in space. Originally I was just going to make a painting of him playing guitar, but  I thought it would look more interesting if he was in space. Plus, I have noticed that some music gives the effect of feeling like you're in space. The first thing I did was make a list purple wash all over the canvas. Next, I drew out Michael and his guitar. For this part I really took my time in trying to get all the proportions right. I did not have much experience with foreshortening so I knew this would be a challenge for me. After drawing and erasing again and again I thought I got it close to right. Then I looked up pictures of space to get an idea for what the background would look like. I did not really use much of a reference because I didn't find a picture I really loved to base on the background. I just knew I wanted a galaxy looking background with pretty colors blended into each other and clusters of stars. I didn't know exactly where I was going, but I just began to paint the background. I started with a medium dark turquoise kind of color that I made and patted in certain areas with the paint brush. I then made a lighter shade by adding a little bit of white and repeated the technique around the already filled in parts. I did this again making an even lighter shade. I felt like the first color was not dark enough so I added more blue and a little bit of purple. This made the deep color I was looking for and I added that to the painting to show depth. Then I added stars using white. After the background was finished, I began to paint the guitarist. I started with the paints, then the hair, and then I worked on the face. I went with light skin tone to dark and made the areas of the face that had shadows darker by blending in brown. When it came time to doing the guitar I put in strings, but did not like the way they turned out. I really tried working with the tight space that I had, but it ended up too sloppy looking so I decided to paint over that. I think with all the detail I put in already, it wouldn't be so horrible if I left the strings out. I used more dullish colors with this piece. My pallet consisted of dark blue, turquoise, green, flesh tones, and browns. I am pretty happy with the outcome of this piece, knowing I took a lot of time in making it the way I envisioned.