John Costello
About My Art
I have a fascination and a sense of wonder about nature, a love of history and the myths, legends and heritage of Ireland which provide inspiration for my paintings. My commissions mainly comprise of landscapes, cityscapes, portraits and still life. I have had many interesting requests, from a painting of a WW2 aircraft in flight for its pilot to a portrait of a thoroughbred horse for its owner. I use many different types of media depending on the idea or the story I want to convey in my paintings. I use watercolour when I need a delicate atmospheric landscape with a subtle build up of colour. Gouache for more dramatic and moody scenes with lots of texture. I use acrylic inks with my airbrush to enhance my more magical and mythical works creating atmospheric lighting, motion and focus effects which give a sense of depth. I constantly take photographs for reference building up a library of elements like dramatic skies, old twisted trees, interesting lighting conditions and rusty old gates. I use this reference at the conceptual stage of my work. My experience with computer graphic and picture editing software has allowed me to create totally original digital paintings. Starting with a drawing, I scan it into the computer and use a graphic tablet and pen to carefully build up the colour and texture of the painting on screen.
I have always had a passion for art and cinema and I have been able to combine both in my long and successful career. As an animation background artist I have to set the stage for the action allowing the animation to “live” in its own world without competing with it. My use of colour, good sense of design and ability to handle all media really well are essential. The paintings create a depth of feeling in the mood and enhance the dramatic quality of the whole film. The subject matter that I paint is wide and varied depending on the film I’m working on.
My skill in effects animation creates the environment and gives an extra sense of reality to the scene. It takes 24 drawings just to create one second of animation. It is important for me to have a curiosity about how things move and a feel for the physics of nature in order to create natural and supernatural phenomenon in a realistic way adding drama and excitement to a scene. It is this vast experience that I bring to all my paintings.
I am selling my originals unframed. I also offer prints of my work in two sizes; A3 which are hand signed and numbered limited editions and A4 which are open editions.
Take a look at...
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My biography