Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Giraffes among us

Somewhere along the line in this pregnancy, i decided to become addicted to giraffes. So - what better way to add my own personal touch to the nursery than to do my own artwork?

It all started with this sketch. B-rad and i were watching tv and i was doodling, and before i knew it, this little giraffy dude was born. So the next day i went down to the local art supply store and purchased some canvass. I was inspired by some artwork that had been given to me by the lovely Savia and i hadn't painted with acrylics in such a long time. it was nice to give it a go.

The canvass my i used was 10"x20". Nice and tall and narrow. It took me most of the day to complete, but it was my day off - so i had the time.


I started with the giraffe itself, and it didn't take as long as i anticipated to fill in the body colour. I was only working with 3 different paint brushes though. I suppose had i not been so lazy i probably could have gone upstairs and retrieved my entire brush set, but as i said, i'm lazy. Plus - painting all those nooks and crannies with a brush too big was sort of a challenge!


You can see here in this set (above) that i was almost finished the piece, i went upstairs and had a shower, and when i returned i realized the one major fuckup flaw to the art - the giraffes back legs were out of whack. The far leg should be more ahead of the closer one.

After much humming and hawing and debating whether or not anyone would notice (i'm lazy, remember?) B-rad and i decided that really, it would only take me another 15 minutes or so to fix the problem now, whereas if i had left it, it would annoy the piss out of me every time i walked into the baby's room. So, i fixed it - as seen in the third panel there.


After fixing the leg fiasco, i just had to add the last final finishing touches, including the black outline acting as a poorman's frame. Here it is, hanging in its final domain - Chewie's room.

it was fun. i love going in there and seeing bright artwork, that's cute and makes me happy.