Did you know there’s an American Cornhole Association? I sure didn’t. I can see how it could be fun, but I’ve only played a handful of times . . . a beanbag handful of times 😂.

Even though these two paintings are the first acrylic paintings I’ve ever done, I felt confident that I’d be able to create something good for my customer. She requested an underwater scene that would include a shark on one and an octopus on the other. The only other instruction she had for me was to just be creative.

The first step was to remove the Dallas Cowboys stickers which was harder than I thought. Silly me, I thought I’d just peel them off, but the company did a good job of making sure they would stick for a long time.

I figured steam would be my best option, and I have a Steam Buggy so I got to work. It took over 9 hours to remove every bit of sticker. So, I turned on Netflix and got to steaming. Once the stickers were removed:

– I sanded the wood. It didn’t need a lot of sanding, just enough to smooth the texture.

– I also used wood filler to fill in some cracks and holes.

Once the wood was ready, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do, all I knew was I’d have a shark and an octopus. So, I grabbed three cans of spray paint to get a background down for me to work on top of. I tried to consider the scene so I made sure to lay down the appropriate shades and added some wavy movement.

I was a little nervous about just jumping into the deep end with the paint, so I drew the shark and the octopus on scratch paper, cut that out, taped it to the wood and traced it. Then I outlined the pencil marks with light blue acrylic.

I decided to change the top two tentacles into a more interesting pose, like he’s gonna grab the beanbag as it goes through the hole.

I struggled so much with the shark and ended up painting him 3 times. It turned out the first shark attempt on the left was actually better than my final shark. But in the moment, I thought it was bad.

It’s usually best to paint your background first and move your way to the foreground, but I didn’t do that. Acrylic paint is actually very easy to work with so it ended up being ok. Here they are halfway through the process.

And here’s the border. I didn’t protect it with tape, and in many cases you’ll want to consider protecting your borders. It worked out ok for me though. Once I was finished with the paintings, I covered the surface and carefully sprayed on some Navajo Tan spray paint.

It was way too light, so I mixed the color on the right side, and used a brush and a sponge to apply it on top of the lighter color. It ended up having an aged sandy appearance that I was happy with, and it works well to ground the bright colorful colors.

I also used spray paint to create the sunshine.

And you can’t forget to sign your artwork. I signed my first name on the bottom of both paintings.

And here’s the finished product.

How Long It Took Me

– Removing the stickers : Just over 9 hours

– Drawing the Shark and Octopus: Just under an hour

– Total time painting: A little more than 2 Full months

– Finally being finished: Priceless . . . or should I say, Timeless?

Do you remember those old MasterCard commercials? They were pretty popular for a while.

So, that’s it. If you’d like a run down on my drawing goals and painting experience, check out this page. And come back next Thursday to see some more sketchbook drawings.

There’s my dog, Sunny. She got a little jealous while I was painting so much. She’d go lay down in the laundry room and pout. Why the laundry room? I dunno 😂.