SHOP TALK: Rob Schamberger Newsletter 18FEB24
Got love, if that's what you need.
Hi. My name's Rob Schamberger. I'm that guy who paints rasslers. And other stuff. I gotta keep on with my heavy load ‘til I see you come a-strollin’ down that open road.
PAINTING PROCESS
I thought it’d be fun to share some process with you on how I put a painting together, from concept to finished piece. So here we go. We’re doing this. Ain’t no stoppin’ us now.
Possibly my very favorite exhibit at the Nelson-Atkins Museum here in Kansas City is the Guanyin of the Southern Sea sculpture within the Buddhist Temple gallery. It’s breathtaking every time I set foot in there. The lighting, the stillness, and the gravity of the statue against the mural, it’s a stunning experience and a testament to the power of art.
So naturally, I asked myself how I would paint such a thing to even try to do it justice.
First up, I opted to minimize the statue as that gives it scale against the enormity of the mural. I first painted the background with muted watercolors, putting a couple light coats of yellow ochre down first then building upon that with reds, greens and a little bit of blue. I stayed mindful of not putting too much darkness in this because first that’s not present in the actual mural and second because it would work against my plans for the statue and the overall composition.
With the watercolor stage done, I used a little bit of acrylic to paint in the edges of the stone blocks on the wall, both its shadows and highlights. I also ‘dirtied it up’ with a bit of transparent brown iron oxide glaze, to show the wear of the wall from its century-plus of existence.
Here’s the finished piece again so that you don’t have to scroll back up! Who loves ya, baby. So, to finish this off I did a monochromatic greyscale underpainting on the statue with acrylics. I’ve learned that the proper term for this process is ‘indirect painting’, which I like. The concept is that the artist is working out all of the values first and then adds a series of glazes over those values rather than mixing each value of each color. So, I did that. I added a combination of transparent yellow iron oxide, quinacridone nickel azo gold and quinacridone red light to get that lush earthy tone of the wooden statue. I then added white highlights to finish it off.
Having little to no bright whites or pure black shadows in the rest of the composition creates a separation of planes between the wall and the statue (at least I hope it did) and makes the statue, even though it’s smaller, pop off and remain the focus of the piece.
Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.
I started work on my first-ever(!?!) Terry Funk painting on Friday. Here’s the underpainting for the background on it. This is going to be a special one.
A Quick Note: I wasn’t there in downtown Kansas City on Wednesday for the Chiefs SuperBowl parade, but my wife Katy was. Luckily she’s safe, but people in our orbit were directly hurt during the shooting, including a child who’s on a team with our friends’ daughter. It’s an awful, tragic situation and in a ‘big little city’ like KC you’re going to know people affected by something like this. Thank you to everyone who checked in with Katy to make sure she was safe.
UPCOMING WWE PAINTINGS
Terry Funk
Bayley
The Rock
Jade Cargill
Card subject to change.
Hundreds of prints and paintings at Schamberger Labs!
Rob and Jason Arnett's novella Rudow Can't Fail!
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Rob’s prints on WWE Shop!
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Instagram
YouTube
FIGURE DRAWING SESSION
Tuesday night was the monthly figure drawing session at Art School KC. Our model Joanna is such a delight to work with. She has a background as a professional dancer and is so mindful of how she’s posing for us. It’s like the difference between watching someone at a bar play guitar and watching Jimi Hendrix play guitar.
These first two were done with a parallel pen using water-soluble ink, meaning I can apply some water with a brush and the ink spreads out in lovely unpredictable ways. The pen is largely used for calligraphy but its chaotic nature makes it my new favorite thing for figure drawing.
This last one was done with some watercolor and then finished off with the parallel pen. I would do it completely differently now, but that’s kinda the point of these figure drawing sessions for me: Experimentation so that I can continue to learn what does and does not work for me. That helps me grow as an artist.
FEBRUARY SCHAMBERGER LABS DISCOUNT CODE
Through the end of January, use the promo code FEB24 at checkout for 20% off all prints at schambergerlabs.com! This is an exclusive for subscribers, so kayfabe this one. It’s just for you because you’re amazing.
She’s out of her gourd on catnip in this picture.
YOU GOOD?
I finished painting the Buddhist temple piece on Thursday afternoon and shortly after I got several approvals from WWE so I can get back to work. Hence the above progress shot of the Funker.
Friday I went to my friend and photographer Paul Andrews’ studio to shoot the reference for my next couple Emotion Series paintings (Afraid/Overwhelmed and Interested), then got back to my studio to start work on that Terry Funk piece. Feels good getting back into the swing of things, of some normalcy coming back.
This was probably the longest I’ve gone without doing any new wrestling work since I started doing all of this back in 2013, but I feel like I made the most of that down time.
Here’s to what comes next.
Love you more,
Rob
this might have been my favorite piece you've shared yet.