Thoughtful Accumulation

Li'l Popson

Time to breathe! I'm gonna run through the last paintings I worked on.

This is li'l Popson. My second commission for the US of A.

I was contacted on behance by a company looking for a 'photo realistic hamburger'. That's already tricky, since I don't consider my work to be photo realistic, but there are those who do. (These days it's not about what the word means, but what the speaker thinks it does) Turned out they were looking for something in the direction of a Tjalf Sparnaay. Which I will never be. But it's hard to resist a chance to test your skills like that. 

WIP

90 x 60  |  Acrylic on Canvas  |  December '15/January '16

I picked the best photo I could find from their reference pics, but there were things that were tricky to see. I had to improvise a little, using random google images of burgers. Which is strange, I never work from different photos. And as you probably know, I've never-ever done a background like this. Nice challenge.
The hardest part of the whole process was photographing my painting, progress and complete. I had made a deal with the company that my payment would be in three installments, 1/3 deposit upfront, 1/3 upon receiving a high res image of the completed painting (since they really actually wanted it to use on the website as a design element) and the last third upon receiving the painting. Of course it's always a little tricky photographing paintings, because the colour changes in every type of lighting, and you have to be true to the painting. Colour wasn't the slightest issue though, it was the dreaded glare!
The Reeves Mars Black - which I looove - is glossy. I rather like using glossy and matte paints together, I think it adds a some depth. My camera thinks its the spawn of satan though.
Long story short, at least a week of my very tight deadline was spent taking pictures of this painting at different times, various angles in and around the house. Sorting the photographs, cropping, emailing, and taking more. Friggin' mission. But it paid off. :D

On an angle

Also I got to do the whole exporting a painting thing. That's always happened through galleries before, so it was super nerve wracking. but it went smoothly. And I learned A LOT. So that's cool for future commissions. Regrettably the client ended up receiving the painting the week after the burger-joint opened, due to shipping times mostly, super anti-climatic. 

I like the painting though. Yum.