Summary
Original painting of Rapper Ice-T by Contemporary artist Bart Carels.
Title: ‘H.U.S.T.L.E.R.’
Artist: Bart Carels
Year: 2020
Process
For this painting of Rapper Ice-T (Tracy Lauren Marrow), I prepped the canvas with some Vermillion like in some of my previous paintings. Then I created the underdrawing with Primary Cyan. I wasn’t aiming for a realistic portrait, so I used these colors and tried to create something interesting.
I started with the eyes. You may think the white of the eyes is white, when in fact (depending on the light source) it’s often not even close to white. My reference photo had a lot of blue/purple reflective light in it. This is also visible in the eyes, so I mixed some Cyan, Magenta, a bit of yellow and white together and put in the ‘white’ part of the eyes.
Next, I blocked in most of the dark areas like the t-shirt, the moustache, beard, the bottom part of the cap and the shadow from the cap on the forehead. Then I started to paint te face, using the vermillion background color as part of the skin tone. So, the background actually becomes part of the face, which I think creates a real nice looking effect to the artwork. I also added some blue reflective light under the eye, on the cheekbone and on the neck. As soon as you add the highlights in the eyes, you can see the piece come to life.
From that point it was about adding more skin tones, shadows and highlights.For the chain around the neck I used some very basic highlights and shadows, but it works, you can instantly tell it’s a gold necklace.
Final touch was adding some Cyan Mixed with Titanium White and Primary Yellow to add the light blue parts to the background. Goes together nicely with the Vermillion.
Subscribe further down this page to be notified of future art posts! And don’t forget to follow me on social media, links are in the footer down below.
Painting Specifications:
- Just one in the world
- Medium: Mixed Media on Paper (black markerand acrylic paint)
- Dimensions: 24x32cm / 9×12 inches
- Color Palette: Cyan | Magenta | Yellow | Black | White
Availability
