Recent work!

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So I'm starting to finish up the projects that I've been talking about! Over the next couple of days I'll update this post with the new work.

1. This guy is done on scratchboard clay board. For those unfamiliar you use a special carving nib instead of a ink nib and scratch into the black layer to reveal the white lines. So you have to work backwards...instead of creating the darks you're creating the lights. It was interesting...haha. But I was bored with the final black and white so I Photoshoped it a little. I must admit I've been on a swirls-of-smoke-design things lately a la Sterling Hundley and David Choong Lee....sorry...haha
2. So I've been doing a decent amount of landscape painting when I need to get out of my apartment.... it's definately a trip to sleep and paint in the same cube... This is the first one I feel decent about. All the other ones end up looking like blobs of paint with no value system...There definitely is something to be said about simplifying the forms, especially pant life....

3. Me trying to learn watercolor. I've never had too much luck with the medium, but my teacher demo-ed a pretty awesome technique so I might have to mess around with them more.

4. Girly watercolor...

5. Oompa loompa watercolor.

6. This image is an oil portrait for a larger illustration that I have on the backburner right now...I'll post the final when I wrap it up.

7. This post is the first figure painting that I'm content with. It's about a 9-10 hour oil painting from life. I think I'm finally starting to see the color in skin tone!!

8. The last image has to do with the controversy with Nas and Bill O'Reilly (http://www.hiphopdx.com/index/news/id.5717/title.nas-wants-debate-with-bill-oreilly-much-more ). It started as a oil painting for a student show that I finished painting at the last minute (so much so that the painting was wet all throughout the show). So I scanned it in and had to finish it up digitally. A lot of it was scanned in textures and what not. I'm also wrapping up another digital manipulation of a oil painting and I learned one big rule: do as much as you can traditionally since you'll waste a lot of time after the scan trying to make everything seem cohesive!! I'm not sure how I feel about this piece.....it's too new....any thoughts?

Stay tuned for more!!...

20 comments:

Sir Timmy said...

great stuff francis!
love the expression in the portrait, as well as the loose feeling of the figure.
mabye bill reads a bit too much as george dubyyah though?

Anonymous said...

Cool Beans, Man!!!!!! Waitin to see more!

Ray Jones said...

Looks great man! You're handling this transition to illustration amazingly, but you've always had an amazing eye for color and composition so you had a nice start. I think the digitially manipulated oils are coming nicely, the textures and treatment are very unique and powerful.One thing, if you happen to have access to a really good matte printer and high quality paper, id say print out that piece and work back into it in oil or acrylic again (after acoat of gloss medium of course). you might get some interesting effects going back and forth...though this piece looks pretty finished to me. Is that a scorpion like tail thing behind Nas? only confusing part of the image for me. Keep it up man!

Ray Jones said...

oh and hey have you seen David Chong Lee's work? I think you'd like his stuff.

Per H said...

Really great! You are a watercolor genius!

alberto mielgo said...

beautifull work, all of them.

Arree Chung said...

hey francis,

thanks for stopping by and commenting. i always like to see other peoples work. man great work, i really like you washes and your painting that have that grit to it. i also like the caricatures of your friends and the london family. i want to paint more!

1 said...

your blog is most impressive :O)

Doomsday said...

Wow! Looks like you surpassed your dad Boris Vallejo! amazing work here!! congrats!

Gordon Hammond said...

You've got a LOT of great work here. WOW!

I think you have a very bright future ahead of you. Looks like you're into Barron Storey a little bit, he's th bomb.

Thanks for your nice comment, I'll be back to check you out your stuff is real inspirational!

Detroit sucks....I mean rules!!

:)

Muze said...

yay...a fellow detroiter...

i am very impressed with your paintings! wow! the one with nas and bill o'reily is amazing. and picture number three...glad i stumbled across your blog. :)

Marcelo Vignali said...

I like the curly haired dudein number 3. Nice effect with the water color.

Nacho Molina said...

I love your art Francis. Your hability for mixed styles is awesome.

Francis Vallejo said...

Thanks everyone!! I'll make a new post with some more stuff that I have stashed away on my comp. But tonight I got a marathon to work on... a 5x4 ft monster painting that's taken over my life...in a good way though...it's going to be interesting finding a photographer to photograph it in order to get it into a quality .jpeg... Thanks again!!

Rich Pellegrino said...

i loved that oil portrait. great stuff francis.

R.Dress said...

I like your explorations with the water colors. Very loose and expressive as with many of your other works. Nice comments here.

TP said...

francis you son of a gun! i miss you man. you inspire me.

Perry Linton Joseph Osuna said...

Lovely paintings great range of subject matter. Thanks 4 droppin' by an the kind words hope all is good stay fresh!!

Haylee said...

Hey hey, Mr. Vallejo. I see that you changed around your scratchboard a little in Photoshop, and I'm diggin' it all the way. I'm quite interested in seeing this huge painting you keep talking about. My Nikon D100 is up for grabs if you need a decent camera to document it. I better go and post some more stuff so I can make my blog more worthwhile! Ha, other than that, hope to hear from you.

Unknown said...

Wow, very beatiful illustrations. You are very talented!! Very inspiring.