Thursday, March 19, 2009

Grisaille Stage Completed







I just finished the grisaille (under painting) stage of my triptych painting. In the next stage I will add glazes of color. Hopefully I will finish the paintings by the end of next week. I want to have them ready to be reproduced for printing and available for sale by Easter Sunday.
On Easter Sunday I am scheduled to paint another sermon painting. So I want to also paint a smaller scale version of that painting for reproduction, and have at least the Easter design and the triptych design available for purchase. In spite of this lousy economy, I am really trying to make an effort to have at least a little income from my art.

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Painting and Drawing Projects

I purchased a book entitled How to Paint Like the Old Masters. At first glance I was hesitant to even look at the book because I feel most books like this are gimmicky. But as I thumbed through the book, I found that the author shares a good deal of information. I appreciate that rather than sharing a "classical" approach to painting (which is too general a term) he explains different techniques that certain artists from the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries may haved used. The book has way more information than I will probably use, but is a good resource because who knows, I might want to try making my own medium some day. Many of the painting approaches are similar to what I am trying to do with my latest painting project. The big difference is that I am working with acrylics and not oil.

Here is the progress so far on one part of the triptych. I have only finished the top hand and need to quickly get on to the rest of the canvas. I think working with oils might have been faster with the actual application of paint. It took me about an hour to add the gray tones on the hand. After the gray tones I will add color glazes. I'll try to speed it up for the rest of the painting.










This next set of drawings is preparation for a caricature of our church's praise band. I don't know about other artists, but I get asked to do a lot of caricatures. I still have a lot of work to do because some of these don't look much like the actual person and I also have to exaggerate the images.















Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Many Projects

I almost have too many art projects going on at this time. Currently, I am working on paintings to reproduce as prints, a caricature project for my church's praise band, building up my portfolio with personal assignments such as Illustration Friday and my guitarist series, and, finally, a new sermon painting design that I am planning for our church's Easter Sunday service. Though I am not one to be busy for the sake of busyness (a trait our society unfortunately seems to hold as a badge of honor), this is good activity for me because it is very stimulating creatively and artistically.

Here is the start of my sermon painting idea (for more info on my sermon paintings, follow the link http://davidrvallejo.com/?page_id=514 ). One of the inspirations for this design is Rodin's "Hand of God". I want to work on the idea a bit more before I present it to my minister. At this point of the design stage, it sort of reminds me of hands sculpting an Oscar award. Work, work work!

Thursday, March 5, 2009

Illustration Friday: "Breezy"

Not much time this week to just sit down and take a long time to do this week's topic, but here it is anyway.

Sometimes a little breeze is not the best experience.

Done with graphite on paper.

Monday, March 2, 2009

Putting in the Darks

Continuing on this evening, I put in the dark tones for this piece. The mid tones will follow some time this week. I just need to find the time to be at the easel.


For those interested and unfamiliar with my sermon painting project, please refer to http://davidrvallejo.com/?page_id=514






Re-working a Design

I am re-working my sermon painting series so that I can sell them as color prints. Therefore, I am repainting them on a smaller scale, about 18"x 24" compared to 4'x 6' actual sermon painting size. The smaller scale will yield a better reproduction of the work.

Additionally, I want to have a more refined approach to the smaller paintings. I will be experimenting with a grisaille approach to painting, which starts with a monochromatic gray value underpainting, followed by thin glazes of color.

This is what I have so far. I have not yet completed the gray value stage. These are done with acrylics.