Steampunk clockwork

I wanted to create a piece for Jan, and something that can be displayed in the front of the house.

When it was finished, Jan asked me for the frame size….oops. my biggest downfall is I never even think about frame sizes, I just paint to have fun, and this one I’m not even sure it’s square.

concept drawing and clean pencil.

 

blue clock face, with a wrinkle texture.

Light cog shading and basic rust beginning. (note the cut up piece of plastic used for overlapping brown colors to achieve a rusty feel.)

wires/hoses and deeper shadowing.

this next part was handled using water colors /w paintbrush, Exacto blade and my airbrush to pull it all together.

1. brush in some browns for the rust streaks, where ever water would normally pool or rest.
2. use the razor blade to scrape, fleck or lightly gouge the paper, in the rusty areas; this gives some texture, albeit white.
3. using transparent black and hand templates will fill in the white flecks and give depth while blending the water colors in nicely. just don’t go too dark yet.
4. I add a little white to gives some edging or flair; but once again not too much as I  want to hold off until the end to balance out the shadows and highlights equally across the whole piece.

the same steps are repeated in small sections, this helps keep me focused and not feel overwhelmed when I work on it for a few hours every night after work.

I did a quick Frisket of my work so far to add in the background. in this case I intentionally  let the airbrush splatter, and kept the colors loose and fast.

I  used the Exacto blade again to carve small little highlights below where ever a darker splatters occurred; this created some cool pock marks (texture)

a close up the pock marks.

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I equalized all the shadows and highlights, signed it in the details and finished Christmas eve’ eve.