I wanted to make another painting with imagery jumbled all over it. Sometimes I feel like all the iconography thrown on one painting helps me to communicate/ explore more complex ideas. So this time I wanted to use that style and make a painting that explores one of my favorite topics: money.  Some of what I’ve been working on has to do with money and love/ girls/ sex. But this time I didn’t want to mesh those two things together as much (although there are still some sexual undertones to this piece).

I typically always approach every painting with a detailed sketch and a plan, and I try to never work out the composition on the canvas. If I paint something and then decide it needs to be moved or changed, then it takes a huge amount of time to do that. Although changes do sometimes have to be made no matter how much planning is done.

The very rough sketch above was the initial concept for the painting. I probably reworked the sketch about 3 or 4 times and then drew each individual image (the check, the box of cash, etc.) in detail. Then I took the sketches into Photoshop and/or Illustrator to finalize them. And finally I laid out the final composition in Photoshop.

After sketching everything on the canvas in pencil, I started mixing a few new colors and then started painting as usual. A lot of times I’m not sure about colors until I put them together on the painting. For example I changed the color of the $100,000 donuts about 3 times and then finally decided on the blue frosting you see above.

Something really exciting for me about this painting is that it’s the first time I’ve ever used screen printing as part of my process. I knew I wanted the typography in the checks to be as detailed as possible, and the only way to really do that was to do some screen printing.

More or less this part went pretty smoothly. I got some of Golden’s silk screen medium and mixed it with my acrylic paints and it worked really well. I thought I might have problems with the acrylic drying in the screens too fast, but it didn’t. However, I did have to re-do the black on the second check about 3 times which was kinda a pain in the ass. But in the end it was all worth it because the checks came out exactly how I wanted them to.

Here’s the checks after pulling 3 different colors over them & doing some detail touch ups by hand.

The rest of the painting was painted by hand as usual. It was pretty straightforward. I got a bootleg copy of Sade’s new album a few weeks ago &  listened to it probably a zillion times while working on this. It got kinda depressing though, so I balanced it out with a lot of Drake & Kanye West to get in a more upbeat painting zone.

Here’s the finished shoe box money.

Detail from the finished checks.

And after many, many, many very long nights, I finally finished the painting.

$100k, Some Big Checks, & Shoe Box Money
Acrylic & Silkscreen on canvas mounted on wood.
48 inches X 48 inches
2010

It All Comes Down to One Thing.
Acrylic on canvas mounted on board.
48 inches x 48 inches.
2009.

Studio View.
Smiling Gold Teeth Frosting Faces (Series of 4).
Acrylic and metallic gold paint on canvas.
8 inches x 8 inches.
2009.

Popped Bubblegum & Landed on a Cloud.
Acrylic on canvas mounted on board.
48 inches x 48 inches.
2009.

Maxin’ on a Cloud Eating Donuts.
Acrylic on canvas mounted on board.
48 inches x 48 inches.
2009.

Fast Cash.
Acrylic and metallic gold paint on canvas mounted on board.
48 inches x 48 inches.
2009.

We’re #1! (Foam Hands Full of Cash).
Acrylic on canvas mounted on board.
48 inches x 48 inches.
2009.