chr15to

Usually when it's a wildlife painting, I just alter the existing wildlife. This time I just wanted to try that "giant thing off in the misty distance" effect.

I paint monsters into landscapes. This one was a challenge because the original landscape painting had significant damage, like someone had stabbed it a few times. I wound up having to patch it up from the back and then touch up parts of the original artist's work from the front. It was a good learning experience.

I paint monsters into landscapes. I try to do a lot of random doodling on paper. Sometimes things I've sketched get adapted to future paintings.

I paint monsters into landscapes. Before the term "repainting" became more common, I was calling these "involuntary collaborations". As a general rule, if there's an original signature, I put my signature underneath it after an ampersand.

I paint monsters into landscapes. Here's a fairly recent one.

I paint monsters into landscapes. This one was done at the request of an art teacher who had talked to her class about my work, and then asked me if I'd paint a monster into a painting she had of a covered bridge. I documented the process for her, which I'll add to this post. If you have any questions, raise your hand. 😁

I paint monsters into landscapes. I keep coming back to variations on this particular monster for maybe obvious reasons. This guy's a little more frazzled.

I paint monsters into landscapes. This is the third one I did. I finished it in the high school classroom I was teaching in at the time. This painting gained some internet traction. I was eventually approached by Republic Records and the band Weezer to see if a deal could be made to use it as the cover of their 2014 album "Everything Will Be Alright in the End". I agreed.

I paint monsters into thrift store landscapes. This is the second one I did, another from the era in which I didn't have the foresight to photograph the original landscape, or in this case, swampscape. I was also giving them generic titles based on their surroundings, but that didn't last long.

I paint monsters into thrift store landscapes. This is pretty much the first one I did, which was around 12 years ago. I found the original painting at a yard sale for two dollars. I had been buying cheap paintings on canvas to gesso out and paint over, but this one felt almost finished except for the open water in the foreground. I painted the sea serpent into it, and have been running with this concept ever since.