AHHHHH! Ice Cream Trolls!

I haven't blogged in a while since I've been quite busy with teaching. Over the summer I created an acrylic piece to use with the class I was teaching. I developed it as a way to illustrate my process to my students. The one thing I forgot was how LONG acrylic paintings take me to finish.

The subjects of this piece were common household ice cream trolls. The task I gave my students was to create a painting retelling an event in their life as a metaphor. For my example I did the same. The ice cream trolls represent a certain phenomenon that occurs in my apartment. Somebody (who will remain nameless) likes to go downstairs at night and gobble up the ice cream. This person does this discreetly enough not to alert the other person that lives here of their presence. When confronted about the disappearance of large amounts of ice cream, this person is quick to suggest the possibility of an ice cream troll infestation.



And here is an ice cream troll. Fat from eating all the ice cream. Feet like snow shoes to traverse the soft creamy landscape. Hands like scoops for effective ice cream consumption. And long tongues to lick large amounts of ice cream at a time. They also have cork screw tails; it is unknown as to why these tails are shaped this way and what purpose they may serve. It has been suggested that ice cream trolls may also drink wine....


Here is the rough sketch of my illustration. Bic pen and colored pencil.


Photo reference used for the composition.


Pencil sketch on illustration board done prior to beginning painting.


First step of painting process. Basic acrylic wash is applied to major color areas.


Next step of process- filling in the base colors. From here it's a lot of hard work, patience, and coffee. Developing the blending, details, and rendering takes a lot of time.


and a lot of paint.



And several days later we are done! Yay. From start to finish it took roughly 20 hours.... maybe more. I NEED to get faster. Any suggestions?