4/24/12

When Anyone Could Be a Lord



Old rough of Stannis Baratheon


Recently, I've been having a lot of fun with Lord and artist Frederick Leighton's work. I found him on ArtRenewal.org (an undeniably highly recommended site), and I admit to love-love-loving the gorgeous oranges and glowing warms overflowing from within his beautiful figures.



I've tried making studies from these paintings using a similar technique to what would produce a glazed effect, but in general it seems to show the brush strokes too much, and just doesn't ring true with how I want to paint. Given fifteen minutes and a limited color palette, things stay much fresher and far more interesting than otherwise.

Copy of William Bouguereau's Biblis


I'm attempting now to see how these glassy glazed master works can be translated to quick, hour-long, fat-brush-stroke studies. The absolute depth of color Leighton achieves with the glazed oils will never be duplicated in a digital painting, but there is also so much opportunity for interaction between colors on a lighted pixel surface that I feel something good has to come out of it, even if it's just a better understanding of color.

An amazingly captivating portrait.. and glowing arm shadow galore.

Now with giant vulture!

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