This is a 22" x 28" acrylic on canvas painting of Brayden McNabb of the Kootenay Ice, W.H.L.

I had the opportunity to watch Brayden for a few games when the Ice were in Medicine Hat. His defensives style is that of Jay Bouwmeester. Tall, slick, fast and smart with the puck. His stances almost doubled that of Jay's...really good heads up player that's always orchestrating the play.

 During the warm ups, I watched for a stance and a pose while taking my pictures of him. I'm sure he was wondering who the hell I was. It must of seemed to him that every time he went to Medicine Hat there is this guy  taking his picture again.  I took 75 shots of him. Well 75 shots that were any good that is.  Several of the shots showed Brayden looking at the camera. One shot it looked like he was thinking I was some kind of freak. I would only take pictures when ever he would skate by me or was close enough to me. This way I was sure to get a real good shot or a better shot of his face and jersey.

Once in my studio, I poured over these photos and tried to come up with a pose that I was content to use in my painting.  After doing a couple of sketches, I managed to get four different stances. The one stance I liked the most had his head turned too far for me to really tell who he was.. I usually like to see 3/4 of the face at least. The body was facing me but the head wasn't.

  Using Photoshop, I took this one shot of Brayden looking at the camera, cut out his head portion and pasted it onto the one where his body was facing me.  

Once I have my composition, I then proceed to create my painting.

For this painting, I thought of doing something fun. First of all I created a Facebook account. Within my Facebook wall I created 9 different albums in which I demonstrated the step by step process in making a painting like this.

 Anybody who wants to be my friend in facebook click here Joe's Wall to get to the album page. Once your in the page look for Part #1 - The Painting of Brayden McNabb - Kootenay Ice - W.H.L. Then follow along until you go through all the 9 parts... But remember you have to want to be my friend to view this step by step demo. The painting took 325 hours to complete and 360 step by step photos. Not to mention the writing of each step and the process of the photos. Yeah a couple of hours of work...Oh before you start to view my step by step demo, get some Oreo cookies and a glass of milk....