Only took about three years

Back in 2009 I bought a pad of canvas paper and some paintbrushes. I got an idea in my head to paint a picture of Al Hrabosky based on his 1981 Topps card. I only spent about 10 bucks total, but considering my financial situation at the time I didn't really need to spend it. I procrastinated for a while, then the paints I was counting on using got used up or disappeared somewhere, more procrastination, economic indices suddenly went up and I became real busy and my dream of Artsy Fartsy Hungarians was deferred. Tonight it was realized. I used a standard card sized decoy card instead of a full size canvas sheet so it's 2 1/2" by 3 1/2" but it's a painting and I did it and a huge mental block has been lifted. Al has been immortalized in acrylic.

Things learned from this exercise:

• Paint is friggin cheap. Especially the stuff I pick up in little bottles from Michael's and Wally World. 
• It is much much less painful to wash away a few unused drops of paint off the palette than it is to spend a half hour and three times the paint to try to remix that color you used on half the painting and just ran out of.
• Interesting things happen when you mix paints right on the canvas (or card in this case), especially when you keep tinkering around trying to get part of the painting juuuuuuuust right.
• It's more important to capture the feel of the subject than to recreate it exactly. 
• I don't think I did either one perfectly in this case. 
• Eh, I still like how it came out. Perfection is overrated. 
• Music Has The Right To Children is damn good painting music.
• I really need to stop being intimidated by blank canvases, especially when I've got ideas in my head.
• I will never, ever make fun of Topps Airbrushers who butchered team logos on cards in the '60's '70s and '80s ever again. EVER. Logos are damn hard. 

One of these days I'll do this sucka full sized. It took me at least 6 months to go from the sketch card to the painted card though so it might take a while.