don't babble

the main conceptual idea i am working with in painting seminar this quarter is parodying russian/soviet propaganda. i've found a plethora of old posters over at davno.ru, some i had already seen and some gems that i hadn't. the first one i'm working with is a pretty famous image: "don't babble" (or blab, tattle, whatever spies do in english).

my version:



eventually, this is going to become a painting. i'm still fiddling with how i want to handle scale and paint application (honestly, if i could, i would just screen it, but i would always rather screen). so far, i've been doing sketches on canvas paper and doing experimental hatching with oil paint.


the drawing itself isn't good, and the colours get muddy in places, but i think it's a good start. maybe only hatch parts i want to emphasize/darken, as i would with pen & ink. one thing i definitely need to do is go bigger (this is about 11x14").

now, if only i would spend as much time in the studio as i do in the gym these days...