Sasha Banks
Acrylic and ink on 14" x 17" bristol board
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Artwork by Rob Schamberger
This new Sasha Banks piece is something I've been planning to do ever since she debuted her blue and green hair at WrestleMania 37. I didn't have an exact approach in mind but that came to me after a recent Charlotte Flair painting that I did with a heavy inspiration by classic painted paperback cover art, especially Robert McGinnis.
Acrylic paint can be a danger zone to work with because it's opaque, meaning you can cover up your mistakes and then quickly you find yourself ruining a painting by overworking it. I love watercolor because of its spontaneous nature and the way in the past I've tried to introduce that chaos to acrylic is with a palette knife. I was studying MicGinnis' work and saw how he used what I assume was a dry flat brush to whisk the paint around and I've fallen in love with that approach. I get the boldness of acrylic while also a chaotic uncontrolled nature to it at the same time.
For this specific piece, I also did an underpainting of ink wash and watered-down dye for the grey and blue areas and then let the blue areas sort of work together yet at odds with the grey, again giving some spontaneity to the composition and bringing it all together with the spots of bright green. Really fun!