Boy, what a busy few days! Got my daughter’s birthday out of the way. She was ecstatic when she got her shiny new phone and her Thornton’s chocolate birthday cake! A very happy child all-in-all. Thank God!
So, I can now return to matters of study. I’ve been working on my Painting To A Theme project and producing further colour studies. I cannot show a few of the paintings as they are still wet, and I have no batteries for my camera yet, so I have to scan in images. Not good with wet paint.
As I’ve mentioned previously, I’m re-working famous pieces of art in my own style. I’ve been working on four images: Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa; George Frederic Watt’s beautiful painting: Hope; Ruben’s Portrait of Susanna Lunden nee Foument; and Toulouse Lautrec’s Portrait of Helene Vary.
The Mona Lisa and Hope paintings are still wet, but I’ve done studies on the other two paintings.
Here is Ruben’s original painting:
And this is my interpretation:
It’s radically different, I know, but that was my intention. I was going for a monochromatic colour scheme, developing an earlier scheme I was working on. The colours I used are pretty much at the start, middle and end of the value scale, as the colours were just too difficult to discern when they were closer on the value scale. Again, it’s mostly about experimenting at this stage, although it is getting closer to my final project.
The next image is my personal favourite. I’ve played about with different colours schemes for this item, and by far my favourite so far is the one I completed yesterday. This is my take on Toulouse Lautrec’s Portrait of Helene Vary. This is the original:
And here is my take on it:
Again, this is completely different, but I love the colours and the form in this image. I think there is a sensuality to this piece in its rounded form. I am going to try inverting this colour scheme before submitting it as my final piece. I want to see how it will look with the browns and reds on the figure, with the coolness of the blues in the background, as we know that cool colours receded and warm colours come to the fore. I’m not sure whether it will look better inverted but I will give it a try.
I will add my other images tomorrow once they’ve dried a bit more.
Good job, Heather.I’ll look forward to seeing the others. I, too like the second one the best, but I only think it is because of the contrast you achieved with it. Your first one is so interesting in the line work that I think if the lights were lighter it would be stunning and you’d like it just as much as the second one. Think about it. The Idea of monochromatic is that pushing of your values.
@Leslie White
Yes the contrast! That’s why I like it! I couldn’t think why, I just knew that I loved the colours together. I will try pushing the values on the other piece. I was afraid that I’d destroy it by making the lights lighter. Thanks Leslie!