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more rococo madness
A shepherd and shepherdess
copy after Boucher
painted on a tea tray from IKEA
The tray is 17.5 inches in diameter.
Another totally unfashionable painting
What better way to learn the secrets of long-dead old masters than by trying to copy what they did? This is out of fashion, because everyone is trying to be original. But as Antoni Gaudi said, Originality is to return to the origin.
For a lot more comments about art, read my essay Towards a new art.
I am also painting another Boucher-style nymph on an IKEA tray.
Technical information
First I lightly sanded the tray with fine wet-and-dry paper in order to give it a slight tooth, then sealed it with a layer of a mixture of damar varnish and turpentine in roughly equal parts. This provided a suitable ground on which to paint.
Most of the initial painting was done with a big floppy brush, to create a sort of textured haze suggestive of hills and trees. Burnt umber was used for the landscape and raw umber for the figures. This is because the cool landscape tones need a warm underpainting, and vice-versa for the warm flesh tones.
Some passages were done with solid paint, like the folds on the clothing, and the roses. In some places I have dragged opaque paint over semi-transparent glazes, as with the trees. The gauzy material over the shepherdess's leg was done with a thin layer of zinc white in a glazing medium. (The veil effect looks more impressive in the painting than it does in this jpeg image.)
All images are copyright © Martin Dace 2005: you must contact me for permission if you wish to publish or reproduce my pictures. Permission will usually be granted for web use provided my authorship and copyright is acknowledged and a link back to my site is provided. A link from my website to yours is also a possibility.