As the title suggests, yes a work I completed recently which I painted on a collage of old floppy disks, mounted on a plywood backing board.
A floppy disk, also called a diskette, is a disk storage medium composed of a disk of thin and flexible magnetic storage medium, sealed in a rectangular plastic carrier lined with fabric that removes dust particles. Floppy disks are read and written by a floppy disk drive. Floppy disks were an ubiquitous form of data storage and exchange from the mid-1970s well into the 2000s.
Mario of course is the main character and protagonist of the long-running and highly successful Mario series. He was created by Japanese video game designer Shigeru Miyamoto and also serves as the main mascot of Nintendo. The Mario I wanted to paint was a take on the guy years later, as an actual person.. an older man. The post animated years so to speak.
[Just click on the images to getter a closer look]
The whole idea behind the painting came from a few months leading up to my son Jason’s birthday and the impulse to create something a little different from the norm. I had always wanted to paint on a whole bunch of old disks I had previously stored away over the years and this became my chance.
It also became a sort of old school approach in a way, with the combination of an almost vintage form of digital media with a portrait of a popular digital character from days gone by or the beginnings of popular electronic gaming.
Like most oil paintings, there are quite a few stages to go through laying paint on. The pic above shows three steps in the early stages from charcoal drawing on a rough undercoat through to subtle changes as I head towards a tonal underpainting.
The completed painting before framing. One often wonders when to stop adding more paint.