Who's That Crossing the Alps?

Not Napoleon.*







Here's an 18"x24" commission I've been working on. It's after Jacques-Louis David's portrait of Napoleon Crossing the Alps, but with a slight change.*



It's all acrylic, so it's a change from what I'm used to, but a whole lot of fun. I'm really enjoying the concept (other details will be tweaked from the original JLD, including the names carved in the foreground and the flag) and I'm having a lot of fun with the challenge of the different medium. It's really a different way of thinking; in watercolor, I paint light to dark, in acrylic... well, I'm pretty much painting whatever I want, in whatever order I feel like. But I'm doing a lot more broad areas of color and building up the shadows as I go, rather than leaving the darks for last. I've also been dividing my time between this and a watercolor painting, and whenever I switch between the two, it kind of gives me pause, and I have to take a few moments get back into the right mode.

Anyway, I'm almost done with this one. The background is almost done (just need to finish the soldiers and flag, and touch-up the sky and mountains with another layer or so). Most of the horse is done, and so is the face.

I love this painting so much, I've been thinking I ought to do more copies like it...


*(It's the client crossing the Alps.) :-)