The Process Post

I dropped off my wonderful wife at the airport at 4 this morning, on her way to Vegas to celebrate her mother's birthday. I have the day to myself, and I am halfway through a pot of coffee. I spent last night making stencils and priming wood. This morning I finished the backgrounds.

In case you care, I've been doing a process of priming a solid color (pink, this time), then putting another couple colors on top. I then add drops and splashes of wood stain (Minwax Ebony), and play around with it until i like how it works. I use some brushes for texture, but mostly I use a series of paper towels, some dry, some paint-soaked, some stain-soaked. Adding water and dabbing with dry towels reveals the primed color, the soaked towels add more color and stain, obviously. I play with it for no specific amount of time except until I think it looks good. As I've always done, I make it up as I go along. That's what comes from having no art instruction.

I am explaining all this because I am dreading putting down the stencils themselves. That's the moment of truth. It's when a good background can either be ruined or enhanced. There is great fear involved in using stencils because of that: what will it look like when you pull up the stencil?

Also, my wife has a blog where she photographed the processes of her culinary experiments. I figured I'd post a "process" thing here.

These are the stencils I'm working with. Macauley Culkin and Frank Sinatra.


These are the backgrounds. Both are pretty similar I guess. I like the darker one, frankly. It actually has much more purple to it than the picture shows.

I have been doing these stencils for a couple reasons I guess, but I don't know. I am sick of stencil art. I feel like a schmuck. I have a few more to do, then maybe I'll get the balls to paint plain old pictures. Although, whenever I do that, all that ever seems to come out are variations of my face. I suppose that's fine, too. I don't know.

I have an issue with art that stems from my whole "fear of failure so why even try" thing that has ruled my life pretty heavily, but less and less in the past year or so, basically since I stopped drinking and found my amazing wife. Sidetrack. But yeah, that damn fear creeps up, and it keeps me from writing and painting. I have the fear that I am a narcissist if I think anyone wants to see or hear anything I have to write or say, and who the fuck am I to think I actually have anything to contribute that someone hasn't done better before?

But hey, it's better than drinking, shooting up, beating your wife, or whatever else people do to release that thing inside them that wants to get out. Some people sit on webcams or write hate on messageboards or become addicted to porn or play World of Warcraft. Some people just have friends and rewarding careers. I write, paint, love on my wife, and start blogs that usually burn out after a couple months. As Snooki says, "You do you, I'll do me."

Later today, the final products.