Brainstorming & weird sketching

Actually I´ve never really thought about it. Or even thought. Yes, I do use my brain while painting, but never really made a plan or had an exact image in my head of how the final picture is gonna look like.

Painting is a process. The picture is slowly arising. You never really know how long it´s gonna take to finish.

When I know what to paint, I am searching for images & photos - mostly on the internet.  I usually have several photos that I save on my ipad. Photos of the whole animal, but also pictures of details like its ears, nose or eyes. Then it´s about the format & size. Squared or rectangled? Landscape or potrait? And THEN I start sketching the outlines with a pencil.  After that I usually start painting the background & let it dry. When it´s dry, I paint a detail, like the eye - using black acrylic paint only. After that I take a picture of the un-finished painting with my phone and print it.

What colors am I going to use? I usually go through my instagram or pinterest where I´ve saved photos that inspire me, or where I liked the colors ... These photos can be colorful house fronts, colorful walls, patterns, flowers or even ads. I start sketching on the print out, using sharpies and markers. Almost always after finishing my sketching, I change my mind about some colors. Ends up, that my sketches turn into weird, almost confusing sketches, that make sense to nobody else but me.

Of course I could paint without making a sketch first. But for me it is way easier to do the major thinking part BEFORE I start painting.

Plus, I avoid unnecessary cover-ups, because I changed my mind about a color. I used to paint without sketching before, and it took me way longer to finish, because I wasn´t sure about how some parts had to look like and ended up covering them up with white paint to start all over again. So I guess I DO have a painting routine ...