It has been a great honor to have been given the opportunity to paint a few commissioned pieces for my alma mater, Campbell University College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences.
Three of the paintings I am working on will be auctioned off to help raise money for current student pharmacists. I am proud of the education I have received at Campbell; therefore, I am always looking for ways to give back.
I was given the freedom to paint several pieces of my choosing. The first (of three) would be have to be the university mascot, Gayle and Gaylord the camel. No one is completely sure the full store of why or how the Camel became to be the mascot of the University, but Gaylord made his first appearance on campus in 1934.
Like anything I do, I always start with a plan. I sketched out some drawings to get the proportions right and to figure out the final composition. After this is completed, I pull some canvas and wood together to stretch the canvas to an appropriate size desired. Once I have that completed, I sometimes divert from a drawing or sketch I did to make sure that the composition fits that canvas size. In this case, Draft 1 wouldn’t really work on an 18 x 24 canvas. This is one of the greatest things about being an artist is having the flexibility to change things up than originally planned.
I painted ‘Gayle and Gaylord 1’ first in oil several weeks ago. I ended up having to put it away and out of sight. This is a valuable thing to do so that you can view the painting again with fresh eyes. I ended up touching it up a lot to add much contrast in the background. The harsh mid-eastern sun has created a cascade of color in the clouds.
After much thought on the first painting, I decided to paint the same composition using acrylic. Would it be different? ‘Gayle and Gaylord 2’ took me several days – few hours at a time per day. After several layers of paint and texture you get the end result.
Overall, this is painting 1 of 3.
Stay tuned for additional Campbell paintings to come.
Cheers!