Ryan McDonough

Founder, Sometime Artist

CFO and co-founder @Accompany, acquired by @Cisco. Turnaround CFO @Ning, sold to Glam Media. Former seed VC. McKinsey trained. @Wharton School and @Haas School of Business.

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DESIGN

Garage Workshop

Big fan of working with acrylic – it’s such a forgiving medium.

DESIGN

Garage Workshop. Try to always have enough supplies on hand to get creative and not have your tools be so sacred… it frees you up to keep going and have fun with your mistakes.

Garage Workshop

I am a huge fan of working with acrylics – it is an extremely forgiving medium that can be easily cleaned up with water. When I’m feeling creative, I back out the car & lay down one of the large sheets of cardboard I keep folded up next to the cabinets. When it comes time to finish a piece, I have a pile of wooden blocks to float the piece and allow for run-off. To keep things more functional, I converted a cabinet into a great workspace by adding IKEA pegboards with plenty of room to expand.
I usually paint on the garage floor with blocks holding up the canvas to allow dripping/mess.
On Blocks: Literally waiting for paint to dry.

Fun with Mistakes

Taking a mistake I made that turned into a piece I love. I had already used drywall spackle to build up some of the texture the canvas before applying a wash to the canvas. I then proceeded to paint a small, highly detailed bird. I couldn’t get is as sharp and as detailed as I wanted. Instead, I cut that top coat – bird and all – from the canvas. I then printed an image I liked onto piece of paper with shipping tape on it in. The inkjet ink can’t dry on plastic so I could then transfer it directly to the spackle. The first few attempts didn’t come out as crisp as I had hoped, so I just sanded them off as started again. Third time was the charm.