This is an exciting day for me. Today I’m starting actual easel work on a new, large format, commission painting that has been in the works for nearly a year.
Last summer, I submitted a few compositional sketches to the same client who commissioned ‘The Triumph of Daedalus over Fate and Futility’. He was interested in commissioning a companion painting, at the same 120×60 inch size, of Prometheus stealing ‘the fire of the gods’ to give to human kind.
As you can see, this idea started off pretty rough. Just quick gestural sketch. Over the past year, I’ve been refining the idea, working with multiple models, submitting drawing to the client, and building the panel for the painting. Here is the final composition drawing, to scale, and ready to transfer to the panel:
In this painting, the Titan Prometheus, Brother of Atlas, is shown on the right, carrying a flaming torch, looking out toward the viewer, and moving toward stairs that lead to the long decent to Earth from Olympus. Earth is shown in the background on the right side of the composition, in the darkness of night before Prometheus brings the light of wisdom, curiosity, creativity, and reason (the fire of the gods).
On the left side of the composition 5 muses follow Prometheus out of Olympus. The five muses represent five facets of the creative faculty that Prometheus is gifting to human kind…the actual fire of the gods, and that quality which makes human kind separate from the other living things on Earth…the masters of their own destiny, and free of the need for gods and superstition. From right to left: Muse 1 represents Philosophy, Reason, and Law. Muse 2 represents Astronomy, Cartography, and Navigation. Muse 3 represents Medicine and Biology. Muse 4 represents Mathematics, Physics, and Engineering. Muse 5 represents the creative arts.
In the background on the left is Olympus, shown at early evening.
More than just being an illustration of a story from Greek Mythology, this painting is about the beauty and wonder of the human mind and body…our capacity to understand the world around us, unlock its secrets, solve problems, and create new wonders, and be the only masters of our own destiny. It is about how reason, observation, science, and philosophy free us from the need for superstition, myth, and belief in the supernatural. It is a close to a religious painting as I will ever get.
Before I arrived at the final compositional drawing, I did multiple drawings of Prometheus and all five muses, their costumes and the props they carry to indicate what they represent. I played around with variations on the background. Here are a few of those preparatory drawings:
Now that all of those ideas have been pulled together into a final drawing, I am beginning the process of transferring that drawing onto the 120 x 60 inch aluminum composite panel that will be the support for the final painting.
I blew the drawing up to full scale, and printed it out in four quadrants in preparation for an oil transfer. This basically involves coating the back of each section of the drawing in a thin coat of Burnt Sienna oil paint, positioning it over the panel, and carefully tracing over the drawing. The end result is a perfect reproduction of the drawing in oil paint on the panel. You can read a wordy post about oil transfers and how awesome they are here.
These images show the process of performing the oil transfer on the first quadrant of the drawing.
Once the entire drawing is transferred to the panel and has had time to dry, I can start work on a grayscale under-painting of the entire composition to work out all of the values and the lighting.
Hi Bryan. Thanks for sharing. I have to say you have some of the cleanest work procedures/technique I’ve ever seen! Haha
What size was your final drawing before enlarging?
Also, I’m currently diving deeper into perspective to create more environments. In your final drawing how many vanishing points did you use?
Thanks
Andrew
Thanks, Andrew. I try to keep the preparatory drawings as simple as possible…enough information that I know where everything needs to go, and not a lot of extra baggage. No sense in working out all the fine detail twice.
Since I have the luxury of knowing exactly where this painting will hang, I was able to place the horizon line at what will be (approximately) the eye level of anyone viewing the piece…assuming they are within a few inches of 6 feet tall one way or another. I positioned my camera at that level when working with my models.
I placed one primary vanishing point for all the surfaces perpendicular to the picture plane directly behind Prometheus, since he is the focal point of the painting. I also used two vanishing points, one to the left and one to the right of the primary, for surfaces 30 degrees off from perpendicular, two (one left and one right) for surfaces 60 degrees off, and two (again, one left and one right) for 45 degrees off from perpendicular (this one mainly to set up squares to build the cylindrical elements off of.)
To estimate where to place the vanishing points, I placed a couple of pieces of cardboard on the floor in front of the models…one cut to a square, and one cut to an equilateral triangle (60 degrees at each angle) which I shot in two opposite positions.
I didn’t use a vertical vanishing point at all, since in practice, unless you are portraying a vantage point that actually looks up or down, those effects are negligible in typical human visual fields. I didn’t want to introduce ant fisheye effects.
In the end, I stuck to the lines dictated by the vanishing points for the most part, but adjusted a few things so they ‘felt’ right visually…especially when it came to the apparent height of the figures.
Makes sense, I appreciate the info. I look forward to the progress. Best of luck.
Siento no hablar inglés… Sigo atentamente su trabajo y he de decir que estoy absolutamente impresionado.
Tengo una gran admiración por toda su obra, pero esta comisión me tiene enamorado. Como artista es importante conocer el trabajo de otros, para darte cuenta de que aún me queda mucho por mejorar.
Espero algún día alcanzar su nivel, donde la perfección no ha dejado atrás la frescura en la pincelada.
Enhorabuena por su maestría.
Bryan – Using Google Translate… I am sorry I do not speak English … I follow your work closely and I must say that I am absolutely impressed.
I have great admiration for all his work, but this commission has me in love. As an artist it is important to know the work of others, to realize that I still have much to improve.
I hope one day to reach its level, where perfection has not left behind the freshness in the brushstroke.
Congratulations on your expertise.
Hello: am so lucky to have found your work and site in my search for transfer techniques. Your art is beautiful and I am also impressed with the initial hard work that goes into your prep drawings. On transfer technique: The sienna one looks most promising: may I assume that the paper onto which your drawing was scaled/reproduced was a conventional copier grade and there were no soak-through issues applying the oil pigment to the reverse side?
Hi, Paula.
Yes, you assume correctly, I’m brushing the Burnt Sienna for the transfer directly onto the back of a standard photocopy (really a giant laser printer paper).
[…] back on June 26th of 2019, nearly 11 months prior to writing this, I posted on the beginning of a large commission painting depicting Prometheus stealing the ‘fire o…’. At that point, I had finished the design of the composition, worked out a to-scale drawing, […]
Hi Bryan
This is so interesting and helpful. This may be a stupid question but if you paint the underside of the photocopy with burnt sienna and place that on your dibond surface then surely the whole dibond surface would get covered in burnt sienna paint? I understand that when you the draw over that the drawing will show but I also imagine all that general paint would transfer onto the dibond. Did you use a medium with the burnt sienna. Thank you very much
Not a stupid question at all! That’s exactly what I thought would happen the first time I heard of this technique. Don’t add any medium to the paint! Apply it evenly and as thinly as possible…sort of scrubbing it (gently) into the paper. It will trash your brush. I have one I use just for this purpose. Then wipe off as much as you can with a paper towel. If you do that, all of your lines will transfer cleanly, and, as unlikely as it sounds, the paint will transfer only in the areas you trace. Try it on something small first. you’ll be amazed how well it works.
Happy painting!