"BEERd Me": Art Explosion Contest Entry, Vices

I stumbled across @juliakponsford's contest and immediately knew a painting that would be perfect to enter. This painting is from 2014 when I started my "paint my beard" campaign where I had the bearded folk send in photos for me to paint (I was really into painting the texture of facial hair). When my soon-to-be-friend, Bill, sent me in a photo of PBRs wrapped in his beard, I had to paint it.

I figured it would be a great entry for vices considering alcohol is such a prevalent one.

12"x12", oil on canvas

This is the original photograph he sent in. He actually sent me an image of six cans in his beard, but you could only see the underside of them and I wanted to paint the labels as well to make it more interesting. I looked everywhere for that picture but I couldn't find it!

At first, like I do with 99% of my paintings, I take the image into PhotoShop to help make decisions and to more efficiently create my work. I'll try different backgrounds, oftentimes change colors, and it helps to create the composition that I want.

This was my mock-up from his photo. You can see I pumped up the saturation and contrast (because I love color and dynamic lighting) and also put in a background with roses.

While I make decisions about my paintings on the computer in the beginning, I also have learned the importance of letting ideas evolve as they're being created and allow myself to change my mind. I got started on the portrait, but when it was time to put on the first layer of the background I had a realization: there was too much pink especially considering I really pumped up the pinks in his shirt and skin tone. I was afraid that it would be too busy because of it. It was also too complex for me to paint with the amount of time I had allotted for the project, and the stripes actually were not only simpler and helped balance with some blues, and it also tied this portrait into some of my other work. I abandoned the rose wallpaper idea pretty quickly.

This painting is currently hanging out at a local Taphouse, but Bill received a clock that I made with the painting image on it to thank him for letting me use his image :)

He's a beard competitor that I still love to follow. Check out this picture by Marchetti Photography sporting not only the beer, but some beer tabs as well in his mustache.

I hope you guys like this painting; it's one of my all-time favorites. I can't believe I haven't shared it yet!

Thanks for looking!

www.christiesnelson.com