The Results Are In!

One day following the most infamous mug-shot of all time, I set out to accomplish my first portraiture on a grand scale… a 48″ x 48″ replica of Donald J. Trump captured in GA on August 24, 2023, but in the style of osTRAnderART.  It was a Friday night, and by Sunday evening I was done.  Attempting to capitalize on the publicity of this image circulating across thousand’s of news and media posts, and feeling bold about my rendition of this historical event, that night I offered to donate 100% of the proceeds to the charity of purchasers choosing – with a deadline of Labor Day for all bids to be submitted.

After the final tally I am so pleased to announce that not a single bid was received, and I couldn’t be happier!  I love having this piece greet all who enter the osTRAnder compound!

I thought that this piece would capture the passion of an art collector from either side of the public debate, possibly go viral and start a bidding war.  But, alas, it has instead captured my passion.  So, unless your offer is too significant to ignore, this piece is no longer available and will be on display in my home for the foreseeable future. Creating a portrait painting at this scale required some unique processes for me… first, I used the grid scaling technique to ensure I maintained proportions appropriately.  I wanted to sketch the image first in back and white to capture values.  I would worry about coloring afterwards…

This past holiday season one of my two boys was home from University for the break and heard me working in my studio one evening wishing I had a better charcoal instrument; to my surprise it showed up in a gift under the tree.  What a better time to try out a new tool on a new process for this new piece.  I must be honest, I was generally impressed with my large sketch… it reminded me of art class 30 some years ago…

With the sketch completed on Friday night, Saturday morning I set out to begin painting.  I first used a very watered down blend of a few paints on my palette to tone the entire canvas.  For the imagery I started with value, dark colors over charcoal shades and light colors over white areas.  At first I felt I was demolishing all the detail from the sketch that I was so proud of, but I stuck with my process.  I added bits of color where it was needed most from mainly just one brush that I have attached to a drum stick for extra loose marks.  After about 30 minutes of loose painting I took a pause to see how I felt about the initial work.  I waited and later that day decided that I should frame in the head with a background and torso before making any further decisions. I used my grid on paper for scale and value, and an image on my iPad for color.  The process was intentionally quick and I got lucky with a sudden motivation to wet the surface a bit and stretch my blue color that was running low… Instead, I got this awesome dripping effect and so instead of filling in the blue, I left the negative space with the drip.  Love, love. Here is a mosaic of the various imagery I had around me to work on and from…

Once I completed the piece and began posting to social sites, I noticed so many other posts, all with the same image, which led to me creating a second mosaic using just my final work as the repeated image, and I captured my posts with the single word “Multiply’n”, because that was what was happening… this image was multiplying all over the net…

That’s my story and this is my newest artwork hanging in my home.  

“trump”

Date of Creation:	August, 2023
Medium:	Acrylic
Material:	Canvas
Size:	48″ x 48″
Style:	Abstract Portraiture
Status:	NOT AVAILABLE FOR SALE