The Work of John Lally

Thursday, September 27, 2012

Inspiration

In my last post I spoke of inspiration.Well I've found it! A few months back I moved into my new house and this time I'm all by my lonesome, which may sound like a downer but its pretty great. This has left me w/ an entire house to decorate and no one to tell me otherwise or have to share space w/ decor that has no meaning to me. Along w/ my move I realized that there was a style that I never knew a name for and have always loved. Steampunk. many of my favorite films and art always had hints of it and I had no clue that it was such a popular sub-genre (<--- Kind of an oxymoron but whatever) Anywho, since my move I've become so immersed in this style and everything my artwork has been lacking Steampunk has supplied. Most of my work for the past 2 years has been all over the place whether it be in style, technique, subject matter etc. Steampunk has solved all of these issues. Now I feel like I can paint whatever the hell I want and so long as it falls into this genre all my artwork will have a common theme. That being said, I've decided to start working on a series of large scale paintings, all of which are completely steampunk inspired. I have no doubt that this will be an arduous task but the end result should be nothing short of rewarding on many levels. When this series is done I plan on submitting it to a few galleries, competitions and contests etc. and hopefully all this hard work will pay off. 2013 is going to be quite a busy year. Here are a few shots from the first painting of the series, much of which is also inspired by the Great master Caravaggio.

This is the first pass of the triple self portrait and quite possibly the most self-indulgent, narcissistic pile of rubbish ever but oh is it so much fun.

I also got to paint some of the goggles the other night too. Future ideas are coming along slowly because cosplay is expensive and a lot of my props are too. But you work w/ what you got I suppose.

Thanks for reading...

Finished a new painting

"Ronni" Oil on Canvas 36"x36"

It's been a real long time since I posted and even spoke on here for that matter. I'm gonna try and stick w/ it this time. I started this painting about 6 months ago and finally put the finishing touches on it. I noticed this image that a girl I tattoo had taken of herself on facebook and for some reason was really taken by it. I rarely get inspired on such a whim. Most of the time, becoming inspired is a long and brutal trek and I usually end up settling on something i don't care to much about, but this time everything seemed to work out perfect. I'm going to try and focus on this blog more as a way to talk about art and what not, showing all kinds of works in progress in the process of traditional oil painting that I love so much.
Here are a couple shots of this one.

This is the finished grisaille. I initially did a raw umber wipe away but then added lead white to refine the underpainting. This process took 2 sittings.

This is the first color layer. After this I tended to it a few more times, adjusting colors and adding nuances.

Here is the finished product again. The photo I used was from an iphone and had some vintage filter on it which gave this red wash out over the lower part of the face. Initially I didn't want to add it and could've called it done after the first color layer but after staring at it for so long I decided I liked the effect and more so thought it would be a good lesson in scumbling opaque color.
Thanks for reading...