Hello Kitty Project Part I

Different Kitty Sketches by me.

I am currently working on a mural. Originally it was going to be painted on a wall, but, I am sort of relieved because it means that if the couple moved or decided to repaint the room the artwork would not be lost. It has been a busy week for me. The persons I am doing this artwork for are having their first baby, a girl. I am excited for them, and am honored that they would consider me to do this assignment. I really need to work, and painting is what I love to do. 

Two interesting characters I sketched.

I received the canvases over the weekend, and began preparations on Monday. Sketching, cleaning up my drawings, revising, contacting my clients and making sure things were good, have kept me very busy. One thing that is very important to me about this project is that I need to make sure I do it well. I don't like to do anything half-baked. My deadline is this Friday, with a Saturday Morning (emergency optional). Today is Tuesday, and I have not begun painting yet. It kind of makes me feel the pressure of getting this done. But, I believe the worst is over, as I have had some design problems as well as product problems with the 6 canvases that I was provided. Let me be clear that I am not assigning anyone blame, except for the manufacturer. They ought to double check their work next time. That is something I certainly do, but that is just me.

The specs for this mural are 6 canvas, each a 24" x 20", giving me a 72" w x 40" h panorama. It almost certainly seems like a lot more work than I thought, but I am just getting in to my zone, trying to get that artistic rhythm moving, and pressing forward. I am really excited to be doing this project, and not just the fact that it is a paying job, but I have a chance to make an impact in people's lives.

This is a work in progress, part of the initial design prep I have done.

In the mural, I will be painting in acrylic. Tomorrow, I will set up my brushes, and additional workspace materials. I have to work at the kitchen table, so I have to find an old, old bed sheet to spread over the table. My rule is, I clean as I go, so there is no worry about clean up. As I mentioned, I have done my initial prep work, which was the hardest part. I drew out my sketches and after some fumbling and solution finding, I was provided with a simple tool, a real life saver (where productivity is concerned,) some carbon paper for transferring and aligning my images on the canvas. I admit, it was a little tedious, but am relieved that it worked out.

I will post pictures of the canvas work tomorrow before I paint. Tonight, I used hair spray to fix the transferred images on canvas. I am hoping it works. I do not like smudges. Although there is some pressure to get this done, I am confident that I will finish on time, and believe that this project will be satisfactory to my clients.

It is one of my hopes that this will generate some more work for me. I would like to see this grow. I will be putting together a small flyer with details of my services and affix a business card for my clients to hand out this weekend when we show the artwork. I know it is not for a museum gallery, but I am trying to make sure that it could be shown in one. For this reason, I believe my clients can consider their home a "home gallery"-Nuff said!

I am going to attach a few pictures of what I have planned and am including in the artwork. The Hello Kitty mural includes: Wonder Woman Kitty, Batman and Robin Kitty, Iron Man Kitty, Hulk Kitty, Captain America Kitty, Halo Kitty, Hello Kitty "Bat" Signal, Sith Kitty, Spiderman Kitty, and Green Lantern versus Sinestro Kitty. 

Some Additional Sketches I made.

The scene is a cityscape at night. The signal will be silhouetted, and the buildings will be a flat grey blue or grey brown contrasted by a dark blue backing, not counting the trim which will likely be white or grey, depending, for the dream cloud. I forgot to mention that there are some other interesting features. There is also a Billboard with Welcome Hello Kitty 2011, and a Hello Kitty with 11 stars (for this year being 2011) 

Up Next: Hello Kitty Project Part II. (coming soon.)