Gross Anatomy: A Silly Painting

This painting was prepared in anticipation for the Dennis Dread curated exhibition entitled “Entartete Kunts,” showing in Portland, OR, around the second Goregon festival in June. Seeing as how my work would be surrounded largely by fab zombie paintings, I decided to follow suit and do the most tasteless thing I could think of. I was laughing outloud for a few hours before I started once I’d thought of it.

zombie ref

The photo reference. An image of myself I would use to get the figure correct and a nice angle represented. I like photo reference especially for things like clothing wrinkles. I took about 30 pictures sitting on my toilet. Glamourous.

The pencils. Done on bristol board, this is about 15 x 18 inches… I think. I can’t be bothered to go measure it right now. I also did the shading in pencil before I inked it, but I forgot to take a picture. Sue me.

zombie sketch

The inks. Just india ink and a brush. Okay, I used a ruler with the brush for the lines on the wall. No pens… because I’m an elitist snob.

zombie in ink

The colors. I took a photo of the painting and did some colors in Photoshop. This was easiest, because I’m an idiot and I would’ve wasted a lot of paint trying to figure this out on the real thing.

IMG_1760.jpg~original

Actually painting. I’m working in acrylics because it’s cheap and easiest. Oils are a bitch and I have no real space to clean them up. Bristol board is also cheaper than canvas. Fuck oils. Fuck them in the neck. This is just solid colors, preparing for the shading and all that jazz. All the colors had to be saved from drying so I could mix the different shades later.

zombie uncomplete

Final product. I’ve added the shading in acrylic with a series of dry-brushings and glazes. Glaze is a fancy word for really fucking sopping wet acrylics. They dry fast, so this is the best way to be able to mix the colors, I guess. I also had to reink some of the blacks, as all the water from glazing pulls up some of the india ink. The bloody trail was done by covering up portions of the painting and then rubbing my fingers across a black comb loaded with red paint. Also, a final coat of gloss finish was added so it didn’t look like I copped out and used acrylics.

finished zombie

And that’s it. A completely meaningless exercise in valueless art; a zombie wacking off on a toilet who has accidentally ripped off his own dick. I call it “Could be worse…”

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