Home To Roost

Special thanks to my amazing models Matt and Jess for this one, and Mike for making the joke that inspired this idea and started it all.

Here is my process for "Home to Roost", the first of many paintings inspired by chicken cliches and the golden age of cinema.  

What I thought was interesting about this was the process of the charcoal drawing...I found that painting with charcoal was easier and took less time than rendering with it.  I took charcoal and some coarse sandpaper, created some bowls of powder with it, one with vine charcoal and the other with compressed charcoal, and painted on the paper using the powder and soft brushes of varying size.  Then for the details I used a charcoal pencil and drew them in, rendering as gently as I could. 

By doing the drawing first I gained some confidence and had a much better idea of what I wanted the painting to look like. And after the drawing was complete, I painted it in oils. From start to finish, here is a trail of process shots.