First things, first, I made sure to lock myself in a confined space with an open can of turpentine and two bottles of pinot grigio. Dee-licious!

Holly Golightly is a country/folk singer of sorts. Her voice is soft and pleasant, twangy and drawled, all at once. So, in my image, I wanted to convey the way all those aspects of her music flow together like lovely sound liquid. Hence, the composition showing Holly slowly starting to ooze from the mouth of an overturned bottle.

The drawing was done quickly, and tightened up with colored pencils. I also used the pencils to start laying in some flat color tones.

Surprise, surprise, turpentine fumes will kill you. Luckily, the whole death thing is heralded by raging bouts of nausea, dizzyness and bleeding from the eyeballs. After falling down a few times, I decided to open the window and air things out a bit.

The next step for the painting, was to work on the undertones. I knew I wanted this painting to have an, overall, warm feel to it, so I dropped in two Rothko-esque panels of a rose red and a golden brown. Easy as pie, right?

Now that I'd... wait a minute. What the hell? This is the finished piece! Where are the rest of the steps? Oh, for the love of Pete!!!

Well, without the visuals, it's hard to explain. But yeah... after a few hours of pushing around some acrylic paint on top of the drawing and undertones, I ended up with THIS as my finished piece.

While I'm really doubting the educational value of this little step-by-step, I do hope you enjoyed the show.

Be sure to stay tuned for more behind-the-scenes stuff from The Hiredmeat Team.

Faeries are real.
-Debster
San Francisco,
November 2006