David Bowie Mugshot

Here’s the basic process for the mugshot paintings:

Bowie (sketch and underpainting)Bowie (shading begunBowie (Final)

First, I start with an underpainting to set up the shadows/midtones of the piece.  Here I picked a blue-gray, and then used charcoal to lay in the outlines.

Next, I began ‘glazing’ layers on.  This series of paintings uses acrylic more like oils by mixing the base paint with clear medium.  This allows me to place a series of translucent layers, each letting the one below show through a bit.  Here you see the beginning of this with some foggy white applied.

Then it’s just a series of successive layers over the course of several hours, pulling out highlights and dropping back shadows.