Behind The Art: Power’s Out Digital Painting

Multiple attempts to capture a childhood memory

It was the middle of winter, I had to be around 8, when we were driving home and watching the power turn on and off in the houses along the road. The snow was building causing power outages throughout our town and with each flicker of light we would get a thrill. As the lights went out we’d all scream a low pitched “awww” and when they’d come back on the pitch would go high. Back and forth we would go until we finally got to our house and discovered the power was out, and wasn’t going to flicker back on anytime soon.

While most people would dread a power outage, we made the most of it. As soon as we got inside all the kids ran to the basement where the fireplace could be turned on and we broke out an under the sea glow in the dark puzzle. Only by flashlight light were we able to put it together and in the middle of assembling this picture on the coffee table, the power came back on and we immediately turned off the lights to finish this in the magic of darkness.

This has always been one of my favorite childhood memories and I wanted to capture it in a painting but struggled with doing so in a way that could really capture the magic of the moment (and the extreme lighting).

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Behind Modern Magic has more posts that showcase the magic behind the art. If you like this article you might just like a look in my children’s book portfolio or seeing my process of trying new techniques in American folk art.

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First Draft

My first attempt at this image was to go straight on to showcase the environment. You can see the fireplace, our basement, the dog sleeping on the couch, and three kids playing together. However, this didn’t show the high energy of the scene or showcase the central part of the story–The puzzle. (It was a great puzzle!)

I had just bought some new watercolor brushes when I started this digital painting and liked some of the texture coming through but I really love the thickness that gouache gives to a painting and missed that here. I could have just started over with coloring the original sketch but this layout just felt like it was missing something.

Change of Perspective

I decided to start over with some reference pictures of this lighting and go with a non-traditional perspective. I’ve never done a painting looking straight down so this provided some interesting challenges with foreshortening and seeing the world in a new way. The reference photos were integral to getting this painting right but even as I finished this first draft of a new perspective, things felt off.

For one, there was too much detail in the face of the girl leaning back laughing. I thought that I needed to incorporate at least one face to showcase the emotion of this scene but the perspective and extreme lighting of this face just didn’t work for me. I also felt like, once again, I was focusing too much on the environment and need to hone in on the characters more.

Take Two

In the second version of this same painting I went ahead and zoomed in closer to the characters so there was less environment. I then changed the poses of the two girls in this scene and didn’t showcase any direct faces. It still gives emotion and tells a strong story without having to have any facial expressions in the scene.

There are a few things I want to continue to work on with my digital work including balance color so it isn’t so saturated and continuing to add more and more details to these storylines so that they feel real. I haven’t quite figured out my style of character creation either, I still lean towards going detailed the way I’ve been trained as a fine artist, but as a children’s book illustrator I know I need to simplify things. But in the end, I’m really happy with how this memory turned out as a painting. I feel like I was really able to capture what I remember most about that night–a magical adventure with my siblings.