Elegant Design

A well-executed drawing and composition make up the core tenets of Jose Lopez Vergara’'s oil paintings

- Jose Lopez Vergara

My work follows the academic closely. I've the academic process to my personal way of working, and I've created a process that always works for me. When I paint, I focus on three main things: design, drawing and paint application. I consider design to be the most important part of a painting. Before I start painting, I make sure that my composition works. Good design is the foundation of every good painting; that's why this step can take up to a month for each piece. Every time I have an idea, I try to make a simple drawing in my sketchbook. If the sketch works, then I start working on my iPad to develop the idea. There I plan the colors, the value structure and the shape design. After this step, I start drawing.

There is something very important that I learned in my years in school, and that is that a good composition will make a good painting even if the paint application is not great-in contrast, even a great paint application and rendering won't make a good painting if the composition is bad. Without a good composition, a work loses its visual value and seductive qualities.