Working on Painting "Skills"

So, by some acute attack of insanity, I decided a while ago that I would want to paint a design on my guitar before the lacquer gets applied. It's my own guitar, and I'd like to put that extra 'personal' touch into it. I've considered a few methods as well, stencils for example, but again, that personal touch had to be some artistic contribution of my own. To avoid some nasty reactions with lacquer if I used oil based paint, I would have to use acrylic paint. My next step was to pick up a paintbrush, and get crackin' at my artistic skills - the same skills that I haven't used since art class in freshman year of high school. At least I remembered what end of the paintbrush to hold.

I neglected to mention in my first post that the name of my first guitar was Rose. I gave it that name because of the color of its pick-guard. I admit that I feel guilty about abandoning Rose for a new electric guitar. To make up for it, I decided that the design I would draw would be a purple rose. Purple because lately I decided that I like that color, but more importantly, I believe that the rose will pay proper tribute to my first electric. Since I'm not terribly creative, and white isn't a guitar color I wanted (a friend already owns a white Stratocaster), the main body would be a simple black. I also figure that the purple on black would look kind of cool. After searching all the tutorials I could and watching hours minutes of YouTube videos, I decided I was as ready as I'd ever be. Walking out of a Michael's with painting supplies and $70 less than when I walked in, I began to paint...

Reveal your secrets to me!

After experimenting with some blending techniques, I got to painting me some roses. Some of them turned out okay. The first couple of roses I drew with very dark colors, to try and go for that "dark design that you have to lean in to see" appearance. To be honest, I think they turned out quite well. I would love to share a picture of the darker roses, but my camera is lacking an SD card (long story). The only camera I have then is my low quality smartphone camera... which doesn't even have flash. The pictures I took of the canvas turned out too dark to see any of the blending, so when I remedy the situation with my current camera, I'll update the blog with some pictures of those. In the meantime, I can also share a picture of the last flower I attempted to draw because I used brighter colors and was thus able to see it on my phone-camera. Voila!

Not pictured: The leaves that I painted upside down like a putz. 

I'm actually kind of proud of it. Unlike my government and economics class, I seem to have remembered something from art class. I think I'll continue practicing working with this flower design and color scheme; I have yet to try it against a black background to see how it looks.

Thanks for reading!