SONYA DEVILLE & CHELSEA GREEN: Rob Schamberger Newsletter 06AUG23
'Cause we're like the outlaw stridin' while suckers are hidin'.
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Hi. My name's Rob Schamberger. I'm that guy who paints rasslers. And other stuff. I got the clearance to run the interference.
WORDS
For this Sonya Deville and Chelsea Green piece I was inspired by classic fashion illustration to combine design and realism. Taking a cue from their red and black outfits, I wanted this to be their forms integrating with red and black planes.
After applying the reds with liquid acrylics over a little bit of grey underpainting, I then built up tones with watercolor. I did the red first because it can really overwhelm a composition if you’re not careful. Having it there first allowed me to balance their skin tones against it. Once that was in I then had fun with the black ink and watching this composition come together.
Super happy with this one.
LGTBQ ATHLETES
Sheryl Swoopes
Ink and watercolor on 12” x 9” watercolor paper.
A three-time Olympic Gold Medalist and one the all-time greatest players in the history of the WNBA.
As a personal project, I thought it’d be fun to do a series of 10 paintings focused on various notable LGTBQ athletes being awesome within their sports. Once I’m done I’ll find an appropriate place to show them at.
The online discourse around folks like them and I can be hard to deal with, let alone all of the legislation being introduced and often becoming laws against us. So I’m doing a fun project to celebrate some excellence.
ICYMI, here's last week's Canvas 2 Canvas episode. Tomorrow’s episode will go up on WWE's YouTube channel at 12PM CST!
UPCOMING VIDEOS
8/21 - The Iron Sheik
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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Instagram
Threads
YouTube
Rahr.
YOU GOOD?
Pretty low-key week for me, mostly just making some personal art and focusing on self-care. I painted the above Sheryl Swoopes piece and worked on my first painting from an upcoming collection that’s super personal but also shaping up to be the best work of my artistic career.
I know, it’s all very vague because you can’t see any of it yet and don’t know what it’s about. But gosh, it’s also nice to just make art for the sake of creation and not worrying about how I can use it to keep a roof over my head.
What else?
The cats are a lot of fun to be around. They’ve started bonding in a fun way that mostly involves them having a blast beating the snot out of each other. Tikka gets noticeably bigger every day and has these massive feet that have led us to give him the new nickname of Clown Shoes. He’s become a cuddler that loves to climb up on my chest while I’m working and IT’S SUCH A BIG HELP AND DEFINITELY NOT IN THE WAY.
The tomatoes and bell peppers have started going crazy. We had a lot of unexpected rain recently here in Kansas City which I think helped. Kind of buried in tomatoes, honestly. Katy’s been looking up a lot of tomato-centric recipes so that we can make the most of them. Garden tomatoes are wildly better than what you get at the grocery store, like the difference between farm eggs and store eggs.
That’s about it for me right now. Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season two finale this week!
Love you more,
Rob
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