New Approaches to Commissioning Religious Art in the Digital Age

Atlanta, GA, December 07, 2018 --(PR.com)-- Through history, many of the most famous paintings were created because someone commissioned the artist to do the work. For example, it is thought that Leonardo Da Vinci’s painting, The Last Supper, was commissioned as a mural for the renovation of a church in Milan, Italy. The digital age has impacted every part of modern society and it seems religious art is no different.

Atlanta non-profit, Xethnic Corporation is using the latest technologies to commission an artist to create a fantasy art painting called “The Four Living Creatures” inspired by Ezekiel’s 2,600 year old prophetic vision from the Bible. Xethnic’s mission is to advance Biblical ideas through curriculum, books and art and hosts the online Bible Study website www.connector.org. The company is currently working on project to publish a small group curriculum on the Biblical book of Ezekiel, which inspired the idea for the painting. “I have been studying Ezekiel over the last two years and was blown away by the amazing vision in chapter 1,” said Tim Archer, Xethnic’s organizer. “I looked around for a painting but couldn’t find anything that captured the magnificence of what Ezekiel described, so I decided to commission an artist to create a painting worthy of its glory.”

The traditional approach to commissioning a painting would be to find an artist who would be paid to paint it on canvas. Modern technology is rapidly changing this approach. Artists can now use software to create digital paintings that have a similar look, feel and even texture to oil paintings on canvas. Artists can even use a stylus like a pencil to draw right on the screen of an iPad or Microsoft Surface. The paintings can then be rendered as digital images that are uploaded to online printing services like www.art.com to order gallery quality, fine art canvas prints with a large variety of size, finish and framing options.

Commissioning an artist is now easier than ever before using crowdsourcing websites like www.99designs.com and www.freelancer.com. Like buying on Amazon, the buyer can search for artists online and see their past ratings and reviews in order to make an informed selection, and prices are often very reasonable because buyers can tap a global marketplace of talent. “I found the graphic designers and developers for www.connector.org through these crowdsourcing services and was amazed at the quality of their work, so naturally when I came up with the idea for the Ezekiel painting, my first thought was to try the same approach,” said Archer. Xethnic is commissioning the highly rated Italian artist, Teodoro Quarto through Freelancer.com (http://bit.ly/2zyNgZK) to do the painting.

Technology is even changing the way art projects are funded. Crowdfunding websites like Kickstarter (www.kickstarter.com) have had a major impact on the way entrepreneurs raise funding for creative ideas. Art projects are very popular on Kickstarter with over 250 active art projects raising funds at the time of this writing. “I really wanted this painting but it seemed like a shame to create it only for me. I decided it would be interesting to see if I could build a community around the project using social media and then fund it on Kickstarter,” Archer said. “The first time I launched the project I was way too ambitious. I adjusted the approach based on what I learned from the first project and we reached 100% funding in less than 48 hours.”

The project is running on Kickstarter until January 2, 2019. The painting is expected to be available for download to backers in March 2019. To learn more, visit the Kickstarter project page at: https://kck.st/2SoupYz