Today I’m talking about my first real piece done in acrylic and it was my first dive into anything artistic outside of photography and computer arts!

This was 2010, get into the chrseason and I decided to paint a few Christmas gifts, one being for my dad who is a die hard Razorback fan. The subject for his gift was an easy and obvious one and I dove in.

I set up a little space on our dining room table with a tabletop easel. I went to staples and printed off the image in the size I wanted it to be on my canvas and then cut it out. I used that as my stencil to pencil the image onto the gessoed canvas.

I mostly certainly did not use properly techniques for he process, but it worked. I applied the black for the background

For my next step I painted the hog in the best red I could find. Noting that I was using student grade acrylics, it took several layers to get coverage and my coverage was never really as even and nice looking as it probably could have been, even with my lack of skill, had I used better quality paints.

The black line details were next….I penciled them in first, then painted.

Lastly the white details on the eye, tusks/teeth and the hoof.

I finished it off with a spray coat of sealant.

If I were to do anything different it would have been a choice of better quality paints. Otherwise I think it turned out pretty great for my first piece and my dad absolutely loves it and keeps it displayed on his fireplace mantel.