Saturday 4 September 2010

Las Meninas, Part 2

As the Lady of Shalott is quite a busy and complex painting, I started by thinking about how I could simplify it. As she is the main focal point of the piece, I decided to start with the Lady and see how that went. I wanted to get her down to her raw form and strip away all the textures and shading. So using a light box, I traced over the outlines of all the shapes I thought were important to her figure. I was really pleased with the result, as it almost looked quite Art Nouveau and I liked how it was so contrasting to all the busy elements in the painting.
I scanned this drawing into Photoshop and traced over it to get a more even and smooth line. I then began thinking back to all the beautiful colours I'd seen on my holiday in Spain. I had bought a little elephant figurine from Guadalest and I decided to use it as inspiration. I love all the blocks of colour and pattern painted onto it; it's so bright and eye-catching. I also think the black lines around the colours help to make them stand out a bit more. The idea of blocks of colour is also present in a mosaic lizard my sister bought. Using this idea, I looked at the painting and chose the main colours from the sections I had drawn.


I think the piece has turned out really well. Again, I like the simplicity of it and how it's more 'me'; with all the bright colours and black outlines. Also, if I take the black outlines away it creates a nice silhouette shape, which is interesting to experiment and work with.

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