Just finished this today. Below is a quick recap of what I did to paint this. ‘Chinese White’, acrylic and color pencil on wood panel. Click the continue thing below to read the whole article. (more…)
Keep 6 Contemporary, a contemporary/ low-brow/ pop-culture gallery a few streets down, is having an upcoming exhibition for these vinyl toys called Bax Bear. They gave me one of the ‘DIY’ versions of the bear to paint as I wished, to be part of the show.
So, seeing how I’ve never painted a toy before (unless you include the really awful paint jobs I did on model aeroplanes back when I was a kid), I decided to document the inaugural process.
I originally called this piece Cheating, since the idea was to show a girl who was upset about finding our her boyfriend was cheating on her. I prefer ‘Loss’ now since it’s more general and describes the general theme of the picture more clearly I think. 
This was the original sketch. I wanted to make it a silhouette piece at first with a red and purple color scheme.
When I started working on it today I changed my mind about making it a flat silhouette piece. So I also flipped the image as I think it works better with the girl on the left. I tried some new coloring techniques in Illustrator – well not really new, just in a way I don’t usually work in.
I brought the artwork over to Photoshop in layers. Normally I export pieces as EPS files and import them, but I got lazy so I just did a cut-and-paste job. I started messing with dropping textures and changing colors.
Several hours and a whole bunch of layers later, the final piece is done. I am quite happy with the more organic feel of the piece. Normally brushwork on top of my vector work doesn’t really sit well, but with a simplified vector base, it seems like it’s easier to work in effects in Photoshop. It would be nice to have a bit of a film stain effect too but I don’t have a texture like that on hand and I’m too tired to go looking on the net or make one now.
WEBSITE
www.charlenechua.com
CONTACT DETAILS
charlene@charlenechua.com
+1 647 351 8878
Agent - Illustration
Erika Groeschel
erika@erikaillustrations.com
T: (1) 212 685 3291
C: (1) 646 258 1177
New York, NY
ABOUT
Charlene is a full-time illustrator living in Toronto, Canada. She works mainly in Illustrator and Photoshop.
*Some images on this blog are unsuitable for minors. Viewer discretion advised*
