Sunday, December 16, 2007

Girl With The Pearl Earring




I wanted to show you my progress on this copy of Vermeer's Girl With The Pearl Earring. The top is the original, the next is my recent work and the bottom was my first try. I was SO frustrated with this for SO LONG! Even though I'm still miles away on the skin color and shading as well as the eyes, ear, jawline and earring this looks pretty good to me now. I've been working from a printout in which the skin tone looks much more like mine (i.e. almost white!). I was dismayed when I looked at the original online and realized how much darker it is. Also I see from the wiki link that although my canvas is nearly the same size I inadvertently enlarged her quite a bit. If you look at the full size pic of the original you'll see a LOT of cracks in the texture since the natural based oil paint has been drying out for 400 years or so. Most importantly however, I actually put some paint on canvas. That's something I haven't done since...summer 2006? Sad. Oh well, you can't force it and I DID make a record in the interim. Hopefully my creative pursuits will get easier with time. 427 days sober and 97 days without a cigarette. Why does time take so long?

10 comments:

lime said...

ah thanks. i think putting brush to canvas was just what the doctor ordered, no?

what you've done with her eyes intrigues me.

Zoely said...

in answer to your last question:
"fugaces labuntur anni" (that's Horace)

Winterswan said...

Nice. The second shot captures the feel of the model better and looks more like the original. As for me, still have not painted recently!! Blah!

SignGurl said...

I'm impressed with your progress. I get frustrated and can't force myself to pick up the brush again because I know it won't be perfect.

Congrats on your sobriety and smoke free life!

Anonymous said...

Push your values darker... darker colors... keep going... you're getting there...

and your most impressive accomplishment is in the action you've taken... all the way 'round...

Bunny said...

You are very talented -- thank you for sharing!

Michelle said...

You are doing awesome....on the painting AND the no drinking and smoking thing!! :) Way to go ;)

Elaine Denning said...

You're good, aren't you?

Perhaps you should attempt Girl in a Pearl Necklace to go with it? x

Anonymous said...

really good and great progress, too. i'm with lime: i believe you captured a much more interesting look in her eye than the original.

Anonymous said...

You write very well.