My New Project

I have started a new project and am into it about 12 hours. It is going to be my submission to our church’s First Annual Art Festival, which is scheduled for April. The theme of the festival is “Praise Him.” Just in case you don’t recognize the depiction, this is the shepherd boy David. He is praising God in song. A couple of weeks ago I was at a stagnant place in my art. Not doing much of anything except sketching periodically, but with no desire to paint. I have been doing sketches of the ideas that came to mind for this piece and now that I’ve decided and started on my submission, I am excited. It is oil on 20x24 stretched canvas. I will show my progress beginning with the two I’ve posted below…



I first sketched directly onto the canvas using hard vine charcoal, and then sprayed with Fixatif to keep the charcoal from smearing and thereby losing my line work. The sketching took me about eight hours. I had my 18-year old grandson pose for me so that I could get the position of David anatomically correct. In using him for this purpose, I decided to use his facial features for David. My conception of David was to be a young David so I would imagine that David at that same age would probably have had the same physical structure as my grandson. I also thought that David’s hair and his complexion would most probably be very much like my grandson. He doesn’t know yet that I am using more than his pose for this painting.



This is where I am now. The background has been roughed in. I think the mid range of mountains is too intense in color, so I will be glazing over that section to bring the intensity of the color down some. I will next work on the underpainting of the figure. Thank goodness for the internet...I've been able to research and download images that I've used as reference instead of guessing at what it may have been like at that time.

As far as a title goes; I am usually inspired for a title while I am doing the piece. In this case, the title that keeps coming to mind is "Sing Praise." That comes from a worship song that we do in church. If anyone has a better title, I would love to hear it.

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