Work In Progress- Help Me Figure Him Out!

After flailing around the house for a while over not knowing what to paint and not really having anything to SAY in a painting, my lovely son sat me down and had a few choice words with me that went something like this.

Self- Arrrgh! I don’t know what to paint! I… I don’t have anything to say! How can I paint if I don’t have anything to SAY? *flails in annoyance at self*

Lovely Son- Why do you need a message at all? Hasn’t it occurred to you to simply paint something because you WANT to paint it? Or to make something just for the ever-loving hell of it? Do you REALLY need to say something with every image? It seems to me that approach is taking away the viewer’s chance to apply their OWN meaning to the art rather than your own. With art being so subjective to begin with, that doesn’t really seem fair, does it?

Self- I…Never really thought about it, to be honest. * squints at son* When in the hell did you get so smart? I’m pretty sure I never signed a permission slip for that.

Lovely Son- I forged your signature. I figured you could use the precious moments it would take to sign it doing something interesting like, you know… PAINTING. You might want to get on that, by the way.

Self- Hee. I love you.

Lovely Son- I love you too. Now paint, dammit.

Self- Yes dear.


So here I am, painting something. I trolled the stock galleries and nabbed a photo from :chamberstock: that looked amusing and started throwing paint at a canvas. Obviously, I’m not trying for photo real this time.

Truth told, I didn’t really have anything in mind at all when I started. I just kinda ‘went for it’, though I DID try for something more in the ‘fantasy’ genre this time since I tend to suck at it so much and wanted to stretch my wings a bit.

Those of you who watch for photo real stuff may be annoyed with me for a bit as I intend on switching to fantasy for a while to get me out of my rut. I apologize in advance.

Which brings me to my current problem. I have NO IDEA where to go from here. What IS he? A werewolf? A vampire? A vampire werewolf? WHAT??!

Since *I * cant seem to pick a direction for him, I am sending out a general call for help to all my lovely watchers and visitors. What do YOU GUYS think he is? Where should we take him?

I was sorta picturing a black beard and maybe a swooshy ( is that a word?) mane of hair but to be honest, I just don’t know and until I do, this is really as far as I can take him without direction.

I took a few screen captures of my process... I confess I started taking them a bit late in the game, but I DID take some and will be posting them next. It shows me screwing up and repainting a lot of the jaw area and what have you but…Eh. I figured what the hell.

If there’s interest, I’ll try to make a habit of doing it with other paintings so you can all see how I manage to drive myself crazy on a regular basis.

I’ll also be posting larger images of the works in progress into my scraps section if anyone wants to see them better. I took a close up of the nose in particular as I am always telling people how ‘scribbly’ and scratchy my work looks in full size ( though I did smooth him out a bit ) and thought you might all want to have a gander at exactly what the hell I was talking about. See? Am helpy!

As for this one though…Thoughts? Suggestions? Ideas?