Getting the basic drawings on the surface is an important step. I allow for some serendipity in the painting phase. The drawings look kind of primitive and basic but I know in my head what they are going to look like when finished. Today I drew out the drawings on each of the surfaces.
This is a drawing from a sketchbook I had in 2002. This was an idea for a large banner painting. I always liked the idea of a robot as a sideshow attraction. In this drawing, I thought that in 1930 or 1940, the worker of 1996 would probably be thought to be some amazing working machine like a robot. I had to redraw this on the 7 foot by 7 foot canvas.
This is how it turned out. It's kind of hard to see but soon I will start blocking in the shapes and it will start to come to life.
For this last painting, I redid the drawing with a sharpie marker, kind of loose and basic but this will soon be blocked in as well. I usually work on more than one painting at a time. For at least one of those, I like to play and experiment a bit more than the others. This is that painting. I plan on seeing what this can look like. Play with the application of the paint and be a bit more playful. This is how you learn. So this painting will be something like you see here but I have no problem with letting the painting take me where it wants.