The Bruce Lee Experience

The Bruce Lee Experience


Working with acrylics on canvas has been an awesome experience. The drying time is fast and the layers that can be added are unlimited. When I started this 30x40 painting of Bruce Lee I had no real plans of what the background would consist of, so as you can imagine I just made up things as I went along, I free styled. Below is the pencil sketch I did of Bruce Lee on canvas.

 The next few pictures will show you the process from the starting of this  painting until the end . As you can see the background was not penciled in because I had no plans of what to do with it.

                        Section A

The first for pictures on the left show the step by step process.The pencil sketch is shown in the 1st box .I then mixed  brown and red together to create a burnt color for the outlines of the painting on pic1. As I worked my way around I shaded in some areas like the hair with a darker brownish wash in pic3. Then I  laid down color  for the first layer while I waiting for the other areas to dry. Notice the lighter shades on the face and chest in the 4th pic. These colors were made by adding while to my brownish color wash.

                                                                                   Section B      

The next few pictures show in Section B took more hours to complete. I took breaks in between the drying times and I played around with the background. I kept in mind that when painting anything is possible and most things can be changed. I added a total of 5 layers some more or less in certain areas. In pic 4 I started shaping and defining my subject and background extensively. This important process was a must before moving forward.

Look at the difference in these two photos below. I was really focused on the details and my subject in both but I had worked out the background and started applying details to the dragon on the 1st painting . I moved to different areas sometimes working withing the same color to save paint. This also increased my layering time and allowed me to focus on certain areas that required a lot more work. The dragon i knew for a fact would require a lot of small details .

As my subject came to life I added more details to the background as shown above. The dragon was free styled, I had no real plans of what it would look like or the colors. I simply decided as I went along . Even though the process of free styling can be risky, sometimes you need to just go forward and take the risk and as you become more skilled with your medium you may agree that its not a risk at all.

                                           Bruce Lee 30x40 Acrylic on Canvas 

The finished painting as you can see, turned out amazing. I was completely satisfied with the end results . I encourage any one to step out of their normal painting preferences and embrace a new challenge . Sometimes you will find that during your painting experience the idea you had turns out completely different but more satisfying than you could've ever imagined.