Senior Studio & Blind Contours.

We've got a new president and I've got some new work! I've been getting back into painting and, as a result, I've produced these images. The first one is Butch Walker. Butch Walker is one of my favorite musicians (ever) and this is a sort of homage to him. With both of these assignments, I wanted to take a new approach to my work. I read in Illustration Now that there's this illustrator that starts his work out with a blind contour so he isn't influenced by a style so I did that with these. Basing my idea/sketch off of a blind contour, I was able to rely on my hand as opposed to outside influence. I really like working this way because, as my dear friend Maria Filar pointed out, I'm not trying to make it realistic. Here's the initial sketch that the painting was based off. I really liked the sketch a lot and I think I may go back and try to do something with it, but here it is:And here's the finished painting; rendered on wood using gouache and mixed media:I finished this assignment up yesterday and handed it in today for critique. It's based off of Eric from Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium. Eric has a really great hat collection so I put his crown hat on him because he is a king! I mostly wanted to experiment and just have fun with this piece and my mission was accomplished. I used acrylic (as opposed to gouache) and some mixed media: