Thursday, December 06, 2007

National Gallery

Another digital painting of a sculpture titled Giuseppe Balsamo, Comte di Cagliostro, located in the National Gallery in Washington DC by Jean-Antoine Houdon.
This type of painting, in my opinion, is a useful exercise because it is very difficult to paint the extremely subtle color shifts of the lighting and the volume and shapes. I wanted to spend some more time but needed to post and also was losing interest in the clothing. I love to do faces but quickly get bored with backgrounds and other elements, I think I like the challenge of faces and to a lesser extent hands. But the unfinished nature of the body shows a little of my process that I go into. "General to specific" is my highest rule. This was done in Painter using only the pencil tool, probably took a little over 3 hours.

16 comments:

Kevin Keele said...

WOW! This is exquisite. seriously impressive Dave.

Anonymous said...

sorry for my english, im french girl, and im falling in your website, iwas amazing by your talent, its so wonderful to see your art.

Im illustrator in france, but ive again a lot of things to learn, to arriv to your level!

good continuation, and thank you to diffus your paintings in a site, to share your univer :)

roro

www.roro33.canalblog.com

Tom Scholes said...

Awesome dude! you handled the color shifts so well.

Jay said...

Hey Dave- It's great as always. Did you take the photo or find it somewhere? Really cool.

Anonymous said...

What brushes do you mainly work with in painter?

Shawn Colloton said...

What brushes do you tend to use in painter?

Unknown said...

"From General to specific", that was word by word the first advice that my first and best drawing teacher gave me more than 12 years ago.
Thank you Dave, is always a joy to see how good artists came into same conclusions.

SEILER said...

HOLY CRAP that is beautiful!

Anders said...

waow, outstanding!!!!
this is my definition of perfection!
waow...
congratulations Dave!

Jason Newkirk said...

that is fantastic...wow...very nicely done

David Malan said...

Thanks all,
Jay, I did take my own picture last time I was in DC about 2 years ago.
Shawn, (Whats up man?) and anonymous I'll post this week with a short discription of the brushes that I use beacuase I get that question often.

Jennifer said...

Great job. You really caught the subtleties well. That's actually a great idea for a digital practice. It looks really traditional, great job!

RAPOSO said...

Amazing art Dave. Congratulations!!!

Nathan Lindsay said...

wow dave. this one is impressive.

Ani said...

3 hours ! You're killing me ! It's a great drawing, I like it very much.

Larry Seiler said...

awesome piece...very fine!

Larry