My appreciating how wonderful, gorgeous, and evocative Toulouse-Lautrec's artistic expression is does not completely inspire me, because at times his art lends a discouraging perspective giving forth to the nagging, internal question, why bother? My work has so much less quality and oomph. But there's opportunity as precious as his talent, a chance to learn, to improve, and perhaps advance to my own level of excellence. Two of his works, At the Moulin-Rouge: Goulue and her sister (1892) and The Toilette/The Redhead (1889), are the ones that I have interpreted recently. His medium was colour lithography for the former/oil paint on cardboard for the latter; my renditions were done with colour pencils (the very excellent Faber-Castell polychromos) on inexpensive paper. Such paper is good for everyday practicing though I do use high-quality paper for original work. As seen in the below photo, Lautrec is masterful in making one person's positive feature someone else's negative space as in the background's gentleman directly to Goulue's left whose black attire shapes Goulue's shrugging left shoulder. Another example of his wondrous manipulation of space is the shaping of Goulue's shrugging right shoulder is accomplished by the nose of the man directly to her right! This visual cleverness would have been wasted on me if I had not drawn my version.
I chose to make my version larger though it is challenging to increase the scale while trying to capture proportions among the elements in the picture plane, because it is also a way to push my development by making my drawing more difficult to do.
His of course has the characteristics of a lithography, smooth texture with sharply outlined forms, mine has patchy colour and softer delineations. (Lautrec's is on the left, mine on the right.)
The aspect that drew me to this lithography was the staggering insouciance of Goulue's posture as if there was no one else important but her in the room. Various aspects contribute to her lack of interest in others such as her tilt of chin, her hand defiantly planted on her hip, and her shrug emanating such disdain that it comes as close to a physical slap in your face without being carnally combative. That shrug was not captured perfectly by me, but it came close enough. (Lautrec's is on the left, mine on right.)
The second work, The Toilette/The Redhead, is nothing short of magnificent. I love the colours he used, among others, the blues both warm and cool; I love the rumpled fabric of her clothes and background draperies; I love her hair, especially her slightly unraveling chignon; I love the helter-skelter placement of all the components, from her slightly forward leaning torso to the chair, table, and bathtub; I love that the light is coming from behind her.
My version below got some of the aspects that I found alluring.
Her figure was much more forward leaning because I deviated from the plumbline that I had drawn down her centre. Her lower leg, clothed in a stocking, was less foreshortened. (His is on the left, mine on the right)
My incising the floor area under the chair with a rounded tool before I did any colouring resisted any pigment therefore giving the impression of floor boards. Same technique was used for highlights in her hair.
His (the below left photo) had less pronounced floor boards and a hair bun proportionally smaller than mine (on the right).
Lautrec is an excellent teacher and I am a half-way decent student!
À la prochaine!
RELATED POST
Artwork Series: Faber-Castell Polychromos Pencil Drawing of Two Desert Roses
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| Lautrec's lithograph: the woman on Goulue's right wasn't her sister, but a can-can dancing colleague, Môme Fromage (translation: cheese-loving kid!) |
I chose to make my version larger though it is challenging to increase the scale while trying to capture proportions among the elements in the picture plane, because it is also a way to push my development by making my drawing more difficult to do.
His of course has the characteristics of a lithography, smooth texture with sharply outlined forms, mine has patchy colour and softer delineations. (Lautrec's is on the left, mine on the right.)
The aspect that drew me to this lithography was the staggering insouciance of Goulue's posture as if there was no one else important but her in the room. Various aspects contribute to her lack of interest in others such as her tilt of chin, her hand defiantly planted on her hip, and her shrug emanating such disdain that it comes as close to a physical slap in your face without being carnally combative. That shrug was not captured perfectly by me, but it came close enough. (Lautrec's is on the left, mine on right.)
The second work, The Toilette/The Redhead, is nothing short of magnificent. I love the colours he used, among others, the blues both warm and cool; I love the rumpled fabric of her clothes and background draperies; I love her hair, especially her slightly unraveling chignon; I love the helter-skelter placement of all the components, from her slightly forward leaning torso to the chair, table, and bathtub; I love that the light is coming from behind her.
My version below got some of the aspects that I found alluring.
Her figure was much more forward leaning because I deviated from the plumbline that I had drawn down her centre. Her lower leg, clothed in a stocking, was less foreshortened. (His is on the left, mine on the right)
My incising the floor area under the chair with a rounded tool before I did any colouring resisted any pigment therefore giving the impression of floor boards. Same technique was used for highlights in her hair.
His (the below left photo) had less pronounced floor boards and a hair bun proportionally smaller than mine (on the right).
Lautrec is an excellent teacher and I am a half-way decent student!
À la prochaine!
RELATED POST
Artwork Series: Faber-Castell Polychromos Pencil Drawing of Two Desert Roses
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