This is my first observational painting ever. Hell, this is my first ever digital painting! This was the result of about 4 hours of work on my Intuos3 [not cintiq] I wanted to keep it somewhat speedy, so I didn't spend any longer on it. Luckily I didn't get any calls!

I wanted to practice, so I set aside some realistic limitations to force me to build the image up and stay looser instead of picking it apart like a scientist.

I followed the rules of:
1. No erasing. [forcing me to paint over mistakes rather than remove them.]
2. No undo [to further emphasis #1.]
3. The use of ONLY one layer.
4. The usage of only round, chisel, or palette knife brushes.
5. No adjustments, filters, or blending modes.
6. All observational only. No photo base, no photo reference, no eyedropping color from an external source.
7. No line art [all detail is placed color]

Now, to clarify, this image isn't 100% from observation. In real life, my iPhone has an anti-reflective matte coating on the screen. But, that would have been FAR too easy to paint, and very uninteresting visually. So I painted the reflection and fingerprint smudges you see here from pure imagination.

I got the idea from [link] who got the idea from [link] . So I thought I'd give it a shot as well.

I'd highly suggest any one of you give this a shot as well. Just paint something on your desk as it appears. When you start, it will look like CRAP. Just remember to stick with it and keep building up the forms and shading! In a matter of hours you'll start to have a really nice looking image! I kinda want this to turn into a meme XD. "Paint the crap on your desk."

Progress Shots
1. [link]
2. [link]
3. [link]
4. [link]
5. [link]
6. [link]

Also if you were wondering, yes, I do own official Mario coins and that's a tiny version of the truck in Evangelion. >D And, YES, I'm STILL rockin' my iPhone EDGE/2G! I REFUSE TO GET THE 3G.