Exploring, Art Nouveau Style

Triple challenge for February! Design a birthday card in Art Nouveau style featuring a yellow and purple color scheme...

"Little Bear Hug" 5x7 inches, acrylic on paper ©2019

What in the world would persuade me to attempt such a challenge? First of all, I'm learning that having limitations can be a great opportunity. Limitations push us to think more creatively by shaking us out of our usual way of making art. 

When my dear friend Gayle challenged her blog readers last month to try painting in an art style which inspires us, I knew exactly what I wanted to try. Pick Your Passion - The Full Circle Studio

I've admired the Art Nouveau movement for over 30 years. Pronounced [noo] + [voh] it simply means "new art" which is kind of funny since it seems like old art to us now, but I digress. This wonderfully decorative style flourished from around 1890 to 1910 and featured repetitive motifs, curved lines and celebrated nature. Favorite subjects were flowers, plants, dragonflies and the female form. If you have marveled at the famous stained glass lamps designed by the many artists employed at Louis Comfort Tiffany's glass-works, then you are acquainted with an American interpretation of this style. 

I suppose it is no surprise that an art form focused on flowers and curving lines would resonate with me, but it is one thing to appreciate something and quite another to figure out how to make it yourself. Of course I went straight to the artwork of the master himself, Alphonse Mucha, to see what I could learn. Scroll all the way down the page at the link above and you will see a small selection of his wonderful artwork.

 Gismonda poster 1895 

In 1890, Mucha began supporting himself as an illustrator in Paris. His dream as an artist was to create epic historical paintings, but illustrating for magazines paid the bills. An amazing opportunity knocked on his door in December 1894 when he was asked to create a poster on a super short deadline for Sara Bernhardt. The publisher wanted it to appear on the streets of Paris on January 1, 1895. Alphonse designed the poster above and it created a sensation, which pleased Miss Bernhardt so much that it lead to a nice six year contract for Mucha.

What I think is brilliant about this poster is how effectively it uses design to convey a hierarchy of information. What key information do we get at a glance? The name of the play, the actress and the theater where she is appearing. "Gismonda, Bernhardt, at the Theatre Renaissance" All the important facts, boom, done. Designers today would say that is an obvious visual strategy, but I don't think it was common to design that way back then.

If we have a few moments to look closer, we can gather even more information. The mosaic tiles at the top of the poster as well as the dress Miss Bernhardt is wearing suggests Byzantine style. The play is set in 1450 Athens, at the very end of the Byzantine era. The cross behind her head and the palm branch she holds reference Christian religious beliefs that are an important part in the play. Every visual element has something to communicate.

I also noticed the simplicity of the palette. Variations on the primary color blue with it's secondary compliment, orange. These choices may have had to do with printing cost limitations, I honestly don't know, but they certainly add to the visual style. 

1896 photo of Sara Bernhardt by Theobold Chartran

 
The inspiration for my Art Nouveau artwork came from my cousin Mary who adores her cats. She sent me this photo with the tag line "HAVE A HUG! And two hearts for you!! (Little Bear's and mine!)" 

"Little Bear" photo ©2019  Mary Goring

 Mary's birthday was coming up in February, so I wanted to send a hug back. I hoped to convey my message as clearly as Mucha did with his poster. I kept this in mind as I arranged the key design elements and squeezed in as many heart motifs as I comfortably could into the drawing. How many do you count? ;D

"Little Bear Hug" drawing ©2019

Dark outlining of main design elements is another common feature of Art Nouveau, as well as the distinctive typography.  I was inspired by this one found on Allfont.net. Link here.
 

"Art Nouveau Bistro"©2006 A.L.Gophmann

For my limited palette, I chose primary yellow and it's secondary compliment, purple. The purple was created by mixing quinacridone magenta and pthaloblue. Combined with the yellow, it made the perfect warm brown for the kitten's fur.

Color palette.

I was going to be really strict about only using yellow and purple, but this mostly yellow & purple color themed illustration by Mucha influenced me to add another secondary color, green.

JOB cigarettes poster 1898 Alphonse Mucha

 I mixed my green from the same three palette colors I was already using. Cadmium yellow and pthaloblue makes a nice bright green which I thought needed a little touch of quinacridone magenta to grey that brightness down a bit.

Color Palette, mixing the right green.

I'm not certain if the way I used the green is as pleasing as Mucha's, but it certainly achieved my goal of making the yellow word "Hug" stand out. I actually wanted the letters to be in gold, which was another cool element often used in Art Nouveau style, but my gold paint didn't look right and I had to change the lettering back to plain yellow. 

All in all, I am happy with the way the artwork turned out. I really like the underlying design and I would like to move the colors around a little and paint it again. My friend Gayle is going to use it in her next blog and my dear cousin absolutely loved it, and that is the best praise of all.

I highly recommend making something in an art style that inspires you, what you discover on that journey may be a delightful surprise.

Happy creating!

>^-^<

Tina

A Little ShihTzu for Christmas

The last week of November, I received a request for a pet portrait to be given as a Christmas gift. It's really fun to be a part of a Christmas surprise, but I also feel the anxiety of getting a special gift like that just right and ready on time! My strategy; make a detailed list of every step required and when it needed to be completed. It really helped my inner 'fraidy cat to get all that information on paper and out of my head! Here's the final portrait and the journey of how I got there.

"Sophie" 8"x 8"in., oil on gessobord, ©2017

Meet Sophie, a miniature Imperial ShihTzu and beloved work buddy of her owner. Isn't she cute? Out of the five photos that I received, I thought this one expressed her personality the best and featured a soulful expression in her eyes.

The portrait size requested was an 8x8 inch square. First step, order the best substrate for the job. I went with Ampersand's gessobord, a cradled hardboard on birch wood that has a smooth surface, already primed and ready to paint. When I work this small, I don't like the texture of canvas interfering with the details.

Next, I adjusted the color tones on the photo, then cropped it down to a square and created a grid to guide me in my drawing.

I forgot to take a photo of my first pencil sketch, lol, but here are the acrylic paint sketches made over that drawing on paper. This is where I worked out the color palette and composition problems.

The  acrylic sketches helped me to decide to change the shadow color I started with and crop the image even tighter.

Because I changed the composition, I needed to make another detailed pencil drawing. In this photo, I am transferring it to the gessobord using graphite paper.

 Finally, I get to the joy of actual painting! I begin working back to front so the layers of painted fur will look like they overlap each other. 

The water soluble oil paint I use dries faster than traditional oils, but it stays wet long enough to blend the paint layers with a soft brush and get that nice fur-like texture.

After finishing the painting, I stained the birch wood sides with a wood stain to match the sienna background and let the whole thing dry for several days before spraying it with Kamar varnish. The painting was delivered on December 23rd and best of all, was hearing the happy exclamations and thank you's I received when they saw Sophie's portrait. Definitely made the season bright for me.

Happy creating to all, and to all, success!

>^-^<
Tina

All About Babe

"Babe" 8"x 6" watercolor  ©2014 Tina M Welter

Babe is a beautiful 7 year old Great Pyrenees who belongs to my friend Carol in Kentucky.  Carol is also an artist and when I shared with her my painting of Kirk (click to see Kirk), she asked about a commission for her dog, Babe, whom Carol says is the "best dog she has ever had." 

I started to feel my inner 'Fraidy Cat start getting nervous & fluffing up her fur.  I was fairly confident about painting Kirk because I was able to take the photographs myself, could I paint a good portrait from someone else's photos?  Could we communicate well enough through e-mail if I needed to make adjustments?  What about packing and shipping original art from New Zealand to Kentucky?  How to get paid? Plus, white fur!  When painting white, it means you use a lot of colors to give the illusion of white, it is tricky.

Babe, "the best dog she ever had" © Carol Bowles

Here is the original photo from Carol's phone that she sent me.  This was her favorite photo of Babe.  It was quite small and I wondered if I would be able to work from it. 

What helped me calm my 'Fraidy cat the most was how much I wanted to do this painting.  A strong desire plus dealing with one anxiety at a time.  It feels like such an honor to be asked to paint a beloved pet.  I know it is a painting that will be loved and enjoyed, and that means a lot to me. 

Facing the anxiety:  I could lighten and enlarge the photo using the preview tools on my Mac computer.  Using the larger photo, did sketches to move Babe's favorite toy forward.   Looked up postal shipping rates online. Found Saachi art had a great tutorial on how to pack paintings to ship.  Did palette and small watercolor sketch tests to figure out the colors.  E-mailed a photo of the completed painting to Carol.  Carol wanted a small adjustment to the eyes, and I was able to do that too.  I was a bit anxious waiting the three weeks it took to arrive in Kentucky, but it did make it just fine. Paypal took care of the payment.  Success!

The lesson I am trying to remember when my anxiety fur gets raised is this:

Just because I haven't done it before, doesn't mean it can't be done! 
#creativeanxiety 
(click icon to tweet)


This seems simple, but for some reason I often forget this lesson, even after I have been successful.   I don't know, but I hope writing about and sharing it will help me to lock it in.

Happy fear-less creating.

 >^-^< Tina

P.S. Would you like to read my 'Fraidy cat newsletter from last week, "Getting on the Airplane", which was only sent to my subscribers? Then subscribe to the newsletter on the right and I will e-mail you last weeks news letter...

"Fraidy Cat Gets on the Airplane" 2.5"x 3.5" graphite on paper

Here's an excerpt:
Getting on the Airplane

Now this is something that is probably going to sound so goofy to some people.  Remember,one man's fear is another man's idea of fun. ;0

Many, many years ago, the year 2000 I think, Jeff decided he wanted to take a trip to the Big Island of Hawaii.  Great, I had actually been interested in seeing Hawaii myself, but there was just one problem, I was terrified of getting in a airplane.  Not the flying part so much, I believed all those statistics that said flying was more safe than driving on the freeway in your car.  It was the claustrophobia of getting on the airplane with all those people, the lack of control.  Just the thought of it would send my heart racing.

Jeff being Jeff, he was determined to go.  I could choose to go or not to go as I wished, but he was going.  What was I going to do?....

Meet Kirk...

"Kirk" 7"x 5" watercolor on paper ©2014

Say "hello" to Kirk, he is hoping with intensity for his supper to be ready.  Who could resist that face?  He looks pretty spry and full of energy, but he is 12 years old and having some health troubles.  My friend Evelyn commissioned me to paint Kirk for her brother's birthday.   She knows how much her brother and his wife enjoy Kirk as part of their lives and she wanted to do something special for them.

I was just delighted she felt confident to ask me.  It was fun to go and meet Kirk try to capture something of his personality with my photographs.  The intense work starts when I have to decide how to get that special "something" into a painting.   I do put a lot of pressure on myself to get it right, but it is worth it all when I get to read delighted responses like this...

"Thank you very much for the beautiful painting. Kirky’s eyes are so life-like. And you captured the expression on his face perfectly. This is exactly how he looks when he knows that something is cooking on the stove, but also wants to keep me in sight in case there is something tasty in my hand and he tries to look in both directions.

George says "thank you" too. He is delighted with his birthday present. We’ll get it framed this weekend according to your instructions."   ... that kind of review completely makes my day!

This was my first "pet-portrait" painted in New Zealand, I hope I will be able to do more in the future.  I really like creating something that means so much to other people.

Remembering Cairo

"Cairo" 7"x 5" watercolor on "Aquabord" c. 2013

Several years ago, my niece Amy got this lovely kitten when she was first married and named him "Cairo".    When I first met him, I was impressed by his long-leanness and the distinctively beautiful dark patterns in his fur and around his eyes.  Over the years, Amy would mention that she would love a painting of Cairo and I suggested she try and photograph him relaxing in his favorite places and most important of all, where there was one good light source shining on him, preferably sunlight.

Why sunlight?  For me, it often makes all the difference in being able to see the true colors of what I am trying to paint, plus adds the wonderful shadows and highlights that give the illusion of three dimensions. 

Amy told me she had taken some photos, but being super busy, she didn't send them to me.  The years passed, then last fall I saw on her facebook page that her handsome Cairo had passed away and she had posted one of these photos.  It was perfect.  Cairo was relaxed, in one of his favorite locations, and the sun was lighting him up softly.   It is always hard to lose a favorite pet, and I was glad to be able to do something to comfort my dear niece.