Work In Progress – Steeler Great, Donnie Shell

This is my latest painting. It is Pittsburgh Steeler, Donnie Shell. He was part of the four Super Bowl teams from the 1970’s. He was also one of the original Steel Curtain members. This is a commission piece that I am doing for Art Rooney, Jr., owner of the Steelers. The painting will be made into a collector card which will be a limited edition of 1000.

The painting is traditional oils on Museum-grade Masonite. The overall size is 16″ x 20″.

Here is day two of my painting of Steeler, Donnie Shell. I finished detailing his face and started laying down the base coat for his jersey. The front of the jersey, #31 and arm stripes coming next.

Here is day three of my painting of Steeler, Donnie Shell. I reworked his face slightly and started to detail his jersey.

Getting close now. Still a lot of detailing on the arms and the pants.

Here is the fifth version. I spent several hours detailing his left arm and hand. I added more detail to his pants and jersey. One other thing that I did, which is hard to see here, I painted in all the stitches around the #31.

Here is the completed painting of Donnie Shell, background added and signed.

The whole purpose of me painting these players for Art Rooney, Jr., is to have the image placed into a limited edition collector card. The edition number is 1000. They are 4.5″ x 6.25″ in size printed on heavy stock. The back side will have a post card type mailer look, along with all of Shell’s stats. I also create all the card graphics using Photoshop.

Here is the front of the Shell card.

Thanks for looking! Stay tuned, there are many more of my works in progress to come.

Denny