No posts?

Sorry for the delay in posting new happenings or news as of late. I've decided that I am going to use this blog to showcase my new work. Since I haven't completed any new works lately there haven't been any posts. But stay tuned... I plan to work on Eve's face to a whole new level and a St. Marta and a St. Lawrence are coming up... for a kitchen near your living room. :)

Have a Merry Christmas and blessed rest.

Adam and Eve.

Adam and Eve. Acrylic on canvas. You still have a chance.

Looking for models.

Would anyone like to be painted/sketched? I'm always looking for portrait and figure studies, so if you have a shot you love please send it to info@martinrebello.com and look back for your study here! Hurry... I'm in a painting mood. :)

Fruit bowl.

Fruit bowl. Gold ink.

St. Francis.

St. Francis. (Based on Giotto, 'St. Francis preaching to the birds') Oil on gold leaf. One day years ago, Natalie and I were walking home from an art show and we stumbled on this small piece of wood lying on the ground. It had great texture and I knew one day I could use it. Months ago, after preparing this panel, I applied gold leaf with cheap vodka. I was going to paint another floral work but since I feel the urge to chase my desire to paint religious works, I told myself, why not start now?

I hope you enjoy the result. (This piece is for sale. If you are interested please contact me. info@martinrebello.com)

St. Francis. I custom made this frame for the piece. I painted the edge with gold and burnt out holes to match his halo design.

St. Francis' head. I wanted him to have a wise and powerful look. The Holy Spirit is truly acting through him and St. Francis is really preaching to the birds. He sees no one else at this moment, mid way in his sermon. In the original piece his tonsure is a darker hair colour than his beard but I wanted them to match. I will have to conduct more research on this point though. Perhaps they wore a type of wig or hat in those days.

St. Francis' halo. As you can see I looked into the history of halos quite a bit. Traditionally halos were represented flat on the canvas vs. the floating halo that came about with perspective. I decided to use a flat halo. If you look through religious works you will see that Jesus is most always represented with a halo containing a cross. One example that illustrates all these points well is Fra Angelico's, 'Flight into Egypt' painting.

St. Francis' halo is kept very traditional. The lines/rays around his head are a motif you find in many old master works. I put a wide, deep line with 3 thinner lines in between all around his head. If you notice the thicker lines hit the outer holes, leaving 3 holes between each 2 deep lines. These 3 holes are meant to represent the Trinity and the 5 wounds of Christ. (Hands, Side and Feet) The thinner lines coming from each of these symbolic holes, represent the stigmata wounds that St. Francis carried. The wounds of Christ.

St. Francis' cincture. I painted this cincture with 3 knots. Again this is to represent the Holy Trinity and the wounds of Christ. (You can see some different studies I made of the cincture on the white sheet of paper above - bottom left)

St. Francis' hands. How could I ever do justice to such Holy hands? These 2 hands took weeks to complete and together they take up less space than 1 tonnie! I wanted to stay true to Caravaggio and so I painted his nails to appear dirty. (Caravaggio always painted his figures with dirty nails) At first I had painted the stigmata wounds very red but after looking up many other examples and staring at it for hours, I decided sticking with the palette of this work would be best. (The entire painting (minus the gold) is painted with 3 colours: Burnt Sienna, Zinc White and Blue)

St. Francis - Coming Soon.

St. Francis. Oil on gold leaf. Today I finished the painting that I have been working on for the past few months. I am very excited to share it with all of you but I'm going to make you wait until tomorrow! Well the truth is, it has to dry before I can get a descent picture so expect a new painting here tomorrow afternoon!!!

Leaf.

Leaf. Acrylic, pencil and ink on paper. I opened my front door just the other day after cleaning and this leaf blew right inside! I guess it was looking for a warmer place. I told it I would sketch it and carried it safely to my studio.

I often look at leaves blowing around or on trees and think about each ones destiny. Not in so much as their true destiny, but as a mirror for all of ours. Where will they blow to? Will the weather damage them? Will this one just be trampled? Perhaps this one will be lucky enough to be glued into a craft project. Maybe one will become a Guinness World Record? Well this ones destiny blew right into mine and so I picked it up and did a quick painting of it. Enjoy.

Aid to Women.

Aid to Women. I am happy to say 2 pieces have been donated to the ongoing effort of Aid to Women here in Toronto. They are putting on an event Wednesday, December 8th, which I'd like to invite all of you to. (More information can be seen above).

Lilies represent purity, chastity and innocence. If you look up annunciation paintings you will often find that lilies are present in 1 way or another to represent the purity of the Virgin Mary. (Fra Filippo Lippi's is one example). For this reason I thought lilies would be the most appropriate flower to donate as Aid to Women works hard to protect life in its most fragile state, the unborn, the innocent.

I also donated 10 of my personally created and signed greeting cards. I have 2 collections so far. 1 was completed in Europe while the other is floral of various works I've completed. They are blank on the inside and perfect for any occasion. You can order your own for just $5.00 here: http://martinrebello.com/store.html.

Natalie's concert.

Natalie's concert. Green ink. Friday night was Holy Name of Mary College School's (HMCS) Christmas concert. It was wonderful with choral music that the music department works hard to produce. Halfway through there is intermission and since I'm not the best at mingling I always bring my pen and a sketchbook along. The first drawing is a quick one done while the HMCS choir performed. They went on a second time so I had another chance to draw some detail on the left but all too soon the song was over. The bottom sketch was done of people in the crowd sitting ahead of me. I was sitting right behind the Lemieux's and so I sketched them. People never sit in the same position for very long though so these are very rough. Enjoy!

If you're interested you can see a clip of the choir performing here: http://www.holynameofmarycollegeschool.com/christmas-concert-dec-2nd-p140816

St. Francis - In progress - 4

St. Francis. Oil on gold leaf - Work in progess. Both hands are now done except for adding the wounds of stigmata. (You can tell I'm putting that off!) The top hand proved to be much harder because in the original work the anatomy is wrong. Mine is based on the same hand position so the anatomy is off too but it is closer to the real thing. Hold your right hand up and you will see what I mean. Each hand is no bigger than the top of your 'pinky' finger! See his nails? I bought 4 new miniature paintbrushes for his face. Wish me luck!

Spring tulips.

Spring tulips. Acrylic on canvas. This piece was commissioned after Muzart's last show, Petals. I just finished the last canvas in late November and am pleased to be able to share the piece with all of you now. The vibrant colours and spring feel to the entire piece is very different then most of my darker and heavy work but I was very pleased with the vibrancy of it all. I am also happy to say that 10% of this commission profit and for that matter all commission profits, will be donated to The Patrons of the Arts in the Vatican Museums, dedicated to the preservation and perpetuation of the vast and unique collection of art contained in the Vatican Museums.

On this note I have more great news! My next commission is lined up. I will be oil painting 2 canvasses, 36"x48" each, with a landscape of Bled, Slovenia. More news to come as soon I begin sometime in 2011.

Are you interested in ordering your own commission? Contact me at info@martinrebello.com and we can begin.

Foot under sheet and waiting for Dexter.

Foot under sheet and Waiting for Dexter. Pencil sketches using a 6B. St. Francis was drying and I was in need of another outlet. I sat down in bed beside my wife with a blank page and 6B and wondered what to sketch. I often find nothing in architecture areas or everyday objects. God instilled in me a passion to try and capture life. So I saw her foot and attempted to draw it. Using my laptop as a mirror, I also sketched her working on her laptop, waiting for Dexter to run. I went fast and kept the strokes very rough and messy. I let the 6B follow my eyes and held no control in my hand as these pieces came about. I love sketching like this. I need to do so much more.

St. Francis - In progress - 3

St. Francis. Oil on gold leaf - Work in progress. Here is what the left hand turned out to be after a day of working on it. Almost there! Oh wait... I still have to paint his face! !!!

You really have to appreciate these old painters. They were truly skilled and made it look so easy. How many times do we see this type of art and imagine it comes about as easy as when we print a recipe. When you really look at the detail in the hands and face, you can't help but be blown away. Every curve, highlight, shadow, nail is there. It's amazing and wow, hard! (This painting is based on a Giotto masterpiece)

St. Francis - In progress - 2

St. Francis. Oil on gold leaf - Work in progress. I continued to work on this painting today concentrating on his left hand. I've left out the stigmata for now but am planning to add it in soon. Enjoy the video and welcome to the studio.

St. Francis - In progress

St. Francis. Oil on gold leaf - Work in progress. I imagine completing 11 more of these and merging them into a large altar piece. I imagine many things.

Walking with my wife downtown, we found this piece of wood lying on the ground. I loved the details in it so I picked it up and started this piece. I've experimented with gold leaf once before but I wanted to get more familiar with it. For this piece the gold leaf was applied using cheap vodka. They say that is what some incredible Russian icon painters used! I was originally going to paint flowers on this panel but I have such a burning desire to paint religious things that I told myself.. why not start now? To be continued..

The Horror.

The Horror. Ink on canvas, self portrait. This portrait was finished in October of this year. A good friend was visiting for a short while and introduced me to the quill. He was very kind to carve me a pen and here is the result after using it. I find this piece very powerful... and hope you do to.

Flowers and weeds.

Flowers and weeds. Acrylic on canvas. My friend was in town some weeks ago and had brought a bouquet of flowers one night when paying us a visit. The bouquet had these wonderful purple 'weeds' amongst the flowers and as the bouquet died these purple weeds didn't show any sign of sickness. So I snatched them up and decided to paint one.

Ever since visiting a Renoir exhibit in Paris my heart has warmed to Impressionism and I have often found the desire to give chase. This is one example. Flowers and weeds.. What a strange distinction.

Attitude.

Attitude. Oil and HB portrait on Cold Pressed 140lb paper. In this photo of a good friend, she's sucking her lips tightly shut, which proved to be a huge challenge. It's hard enough to get to know the valleys and mountains of a face but when there's an earthquake and everything shifts... it proves a greater challenge to create a piece that is readable to the viewer. It almost looks as if she's chewing gum and while staring right at you, asks, what? What do you want? Attitude.

The mall.

I was waiting for family this morning at the mall and so I sat down and quickly sketched people as they went about their activities. Women leaving with shopping bags, men at the bank.. though I think my favorite is the man leaning in, taking out money from the ATM.

Asleep.

Asleep. Portrait study of a friend. Though the original shot was of a very beautiful and feminine woman, this study has developed to appear quite masculine as I used a thick ink pen and stayed very angular. (It almost seems as if you are staring at 1 of the Hardy Boys asleep on the TTC, Elvis?) I'm always amazed how these straight lines add up to give an appearance we can recognize. A face that is having a happy dream. A face that is content.

An old hand and 2 rings.

An old hand and 2 rings.. what a story they tell. Pencil study of my aunts hand holding a wine glass. You can already see I am getting lost in the details and shapes in this sketch when compared with the last portrait study. I love the various shapes and angles of this hand though.. old and wise, it is still a hand full of life.

A man lost. A man not wanting to look.

A man lost. A man not wanting to look. Self portrait. I just finished this piece with an HB. I loved the emotion it evoked at this point so I stopped. It's been far too long since I've let go on a pad of paper. Too long.