Hola Amigo,
I want to share something with you that I hope will inspire you and also give you some helpful tips for getting to do what you want with spray paint art techniques. This should be helpful whether you enjoy working with spray cans or with airbrush or even if you apply these techniques in your own unique way.
I got an amazing letter from Trent, a Gold member of Spray Paint Art Secrets about how he had taken what he had learned and begun to paint on the streets for a live audience. I want to go over his letter and comment on some parts that I think are important information for you.
Trent wrote me…
“Hi Alisa, I just signed up as a gold member. I want to thank you so much for creating these lessons. I just started spray painting 3 weeks ago and I’m hooked. I still have a lot to learn but I’ve come a long way thanks to you. I live in Butte,Montana which is a mining town with an illuminated statue called The Lady of the Rockies and several mining head frames and a hill called the big M which has an illuminated M on it. I’m trying to create a painting of my town. I cut out a stencil for the statue but it seems a little out of place in the painting. Maybe some shading? I’m using painters touch and haven’t tried any other paints yet. I’ve included some other paintings I’ve done using your techniques. Any advice would be great. I can send some reference photos too if that would help. Thank you so much, I’m so excited for my future with spray paint. I’m so glad I found your videos. I’ve already sold enough paintings to pay for the cost of the membership, these lessons have truly paid for themselves. Thanks again.
Trent Curnow- Butte Montana”
And here are some of the pics he sent me (there were many more than these…)
When I saw how far he had come I was completely amazed. He certainly was learning much faster than I ever did! Definitely bound for greatness…
I did notice that he was struggling with the land effects, so I recommended some of Gerardo’s excellent videos on creating mountains and land with newspaper. (These are available to Basic and Gold members.)
It looks like he took that advice to heart, because in his next pictures, of him set up painting on the sidewalk, his land is looking much better…
Another important detail he mentions in his first letter is that he is wanting to create a stencil for an important landmark in his town. This is a great thing to do if you plan to paint on the streets!
Always, when you come to a town or city to paint, take note of the local landmarks and symbols and try to include them in your work.
A stencil is an easy way to do this for sure. The question about how to make it blend into the rest of the painting is a good one. One that I didn’t answer because I was so absorbed in making sure his land effects got what they needed first…
I’ll answer it here so you can all participate.
First of all, it really depends on how your image looks…so I googled the statue from Butte Montana and it seems to be a white, angel-like statue, of a woman over the mountains. Very beautiful.
Here is what he did, a simple black and white stencil:
The first thing I would do to blend this in better is to use some metallic blue to fade the black area of the statue into the white areas. A mid-tone such as Krylon metallic blue or transparent blue and/or black from Molotow will do the trick for a simple-looking statue stencil.
Since the statue is white and also does not make a good silhouette, a simple stencil probably won’t do the trick if you want a larger image of the statue done spray paint art style. So it’s going to take a bit more time than a simple pass of a stencil. Here’s one spray paint art style technique that has worked for me many times, especially for painting angels. I would suggest again, using white as your main color and metallic blue for the shadows.
You can watch this video to get a better idea of how this works. Just change the colors to white, blue and black in your mind…and don’t draw a skull, draw an angel.
You can see a demo of this technique, but used to paint a skull here on youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nt-P_3vFgU
The first step is to stencil in the entire outline of the statue in white. Then to carve into that with your palette knife in any areas where you want the blue shadows to be. You can make beautiful folds of cloth with your palette knife. Use a pencil or a pen that is out of ink to draw in the tiny details such as the face and any small lines you want.
Then, with the stencil outline in place so only the area of the statue is revealed, layer on a VERY THIN layer of metallic blue. You can add another VERY THIN layer of black on the darkest parts if you want. Use your thinnest black such as the brand formerly known as Colorplace or Molotow transparent black if possible. If not, just be really delicate and only dust it.
Then on top of this, take your poster board and press it onto the area inside your stencil removing the top layer of paint. Repeat as many times as necessary until you remove enough paint so you can see the details you drew into the white.
Remove any excess dark colors with either a kitchen sponge or your palette knife (spatula)
Then you will have a detailed statue!
That is just one way to do it. I have several others explained in the Gold membership area. Gold members can check out the different portrait techniques and the video where I show you how to paint a mermaid sitting on a rock in front of ocean waves with spray paint art and the skull video for more ideas.
You can see a demo of this technique, but used to paint a skull here on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nt-P_3vFgU
I’ll put an angel done with these techniques on my to-do list for video lessons to film in September if possible…
OK, that’s plenty to absorb. I’ll continue to comment on Trent, his questions, and how far he’s come soon so that you can learn more! Look forward to more tips and tricks coming your way.
https://spraypaintartsecrets.com/
http://airbrushpaintingsecrets.com/
If you have any questions, email me personally at [email protected]
I’m happy to help!
Hasta Pronto,
Alisa Amor
