Don't Care (2016)
Hello everyone! This is a painting finished in 2016 called " Don't Care". I made this with ballpoint pen, watercolors, markers, fineliner and acrylics and worked on it for maybe a year with breaks in between.
Maybe you have seen it before on Deviantart (will talk about that later) or on a photo from an exhibition but I didn't find the time and energy (until now) to post it here on Steemit and write about the process.
The idea came from a doodle sketch which was lying around for probably years. I really liked the expression and gesture the doodle had and it came back to me multiple times from the pile of sketches (big pile of cheap printer paper I use to draw nonsense). It really had a "I don't give a shit I go my way, bye" expression.
Doodle on paper
Watercolors and Ballpoint pen
At the that time I was into doing ballpoint drawings and coloring them with watercolors and sort of my transition to colored works (next to acrylics). Finding my own workflow and tools that fit my style. Which I still keep doing and is more digital at the moment.
Here is an example of an artwork I did earlier:
Here is a link to that post: @sanderjansenart/awake
I really like doing detailed backgrounds with all kinds of characters although it takes a lot of time. But I liked how I could color them later and let things pop out by using a different color.
Background
So I started drawing the background with really small details. I started with fun but after a while (maybe months) it felt I would never finish it because it took forever and even after drawing for a day it didn't look like it had any progress. Well it did but I didn't see it. So I had to do other stuff to keep myself sane and the progress went even slower. Luckily I made progress shots at that time to show it on social media so I could give myself some peace not rushing it. And now I can use those shots to show you the progress a little bit :).
The next photo I left the ballpoint pen in it so you can see the exact size a bit more. I made it on A4 and used the brand "Canson".
I will show some more progress shots while I was working on the background. There is a lot of time between the shots. Even the desk changes and probably changed a couple work spaces as well....
I had a small desk to work on when I started...
Finished linework
In the picture below I'm really close to finishing the linework. I couldn't find a version of the finished linework before I colored it. But when we have time machines I promise to go back in time and scan it before coloring it.
Because I draw right handed the background kind of turned into some wave. I disliked it first but after a while I thought it would give it a cool effect and movement.
Coloring
When I was ready with the linework I could start doing the coloring. But damn that was scary....I could ruin it in a second, something I worked on for so long.....So I kept delaying it and eventually thought well it would be waste never finishing it so could ruin it anyway. I already thought about using red and blue so I started with that. It's a combination I used a lot and kind of my comfort.
You can see that in the meanwhile my desk changed into a glass desk...:D
I didn't use watercolor paper so it got a bit bubbly (is that a word?) but the paper was not so thin so it could manage the torture by water.
After I colored everything with watercolors I have to make new decisions. I wanted to add more different colors and I wanted to make the creature pop out. I decided to use markers for the tiny purple and pink tentacles and yellow eyes. Later I used darker purple on the tentacles because I wanted to put it more to the back of the artwork.
Acrylics
My experience with watercolors is that it isn't made for equal or homogeneous backgrounds. And I know acrylics could do that and also makes a thick layer to make it even pop out more from the background. So I colored the yellow creature with acrylics and made the eyes black with a fineliner (micron pen). I also used fineliner to make the outlines of the yellow creature thicker so it would popout even more.
Finished artwork and the title
So after a year I finished it and was really excited about the artwork. Decided to call it "Don't Care" which was also song from the band "Obituary" but never mentioned that when I posted it online. If you listen to Death Metal you will probably know the song. That band and so many more were an inspiration when I was playing in a band myself (Verderf - Zombie Death Metal 2001 - 2009)....But I was listening a lot to the album "World Demise" and older ones when drawing the lines. And that title fits the artwork and the expression.
Don't Care by Obituary
Finished Artwork and Daily Deviation
Anyway my artwork got a Daily Deviation on Deviantart (September 2017) which was my second one. I was really happy with that (yeah still no DD's on my pencils works) and felt like it was worth it all. Here is the link to work on Deviant Art https://www.deviantart.com/sanderjansen/art/Don-t-Care-622636252 I posted it on July 19, 2016.
Here is a link to an older post about my first DD: @sanderjansenart/socialization
Prints
I never sell the original but the prints are as amazing as well.
If you are interested in buying high quality prints you can order them from my website: www.sanderjansen.net.
Also selling other prints and some cool looking shirts.
Well that was about it, really hope you like this post? Took me a while to find all the photos and to write. Sorry for any mistakes as English isn't my main language and I'm very chaotic in writing or reading ;) But I tried my best :D