My pal Jason suggested I draw myself as someone else. Naturally, I chose Richard Nixon.

Well, here it is. My first painting…ever? Eye spacing issues aside, I was pleasantly surprised with the result. I mainly used the technique described in this hour-long YouTube video, starting with one base color for the whole image, then painting large swaths of tone over that, then blending using the color picker with a brush at low opacity. Photoshop CS5 actually has brushes that simulate wet paint, but I didn’t use those.

I watched a few tutorials tonight on digital painting, so I thought I’d give it a shot. This will probably take a couple evenings. Here’s the first step; the sketch that I’ll paint over. As you can see, it’s me eating a cracker, which I’m sure is something Van Gogh would have painted if he hadn’t come up with the whole hacking off the ear thing. Sneak peek at my progress as I hang it up for the night:

One of my biggest problems right now is misjudging how much space I need on a page, even with a photograph in front of me. Drawing from life is even harder; I guess I’ll have to adopt that stereotypical thumb-forefinger window until I improve. Drawn on newsprint with a soft wax crayon.

Drawn on iPad in Sketchbook Pro.