torstai 16. tammikuuta 2014

Swan princess

Last year there was an exhibition in Helsinki with russian art from the Tretjakov art gallery (link). I really liked most of the artwork and I decided to make a copy of one of the paintings. I chose the beautiful Swan Princess by Mihail Vrubel. Vrubel has a very special painting style and his "unfinished touch" is quite impossible to copy. As I tend to do with my copies this copy turned out pretty "loose". With that I mean that it's not a 100% copy of the painting...it's something similar and I try to learn something from the other artist brush stroke methods, composition and colour use.

I don't regard my copied work as high as my other art, but I love doing copies since it's such a learning experience. It's a common art teaching method that's been used for centuries. Unfortunately it's not possible for me to sit next to the original painting and copy from tha, so what I usually do is that I buy a poster of the artwork. Throughout the painting process I have the poster next to me. Sometimes I look very closely to the "original" and sometimes hardly at all and I add my own thing to the painting.

Some of my earlier copies are:
Frank Frazetta - Thuvia maid of mars:
http://nadja-art.blogspot.fi/2012/05/thuvia-maid-of-mars-frazetta-copy.html

Alphonse Mucha - The moon
http://nadja-art.blogspot.fi/2013/08/the-moon-drawing.html
http://nadja-mariina.deviantart.com/art/the-moon-115608267

Gustav Klimt - Mäda Primavesi
http://nadja-art.blogspot.fi/2012/07/tribute-to-gustav-klimt.html

Below is my version of the swan princess. The beautiful original you can see for example here: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Swan_princess.jpg

In honor to the artist Mihail Vrabol I also added a photo of the artist. Next to him is his wife Nadeshda who was a famous opera singer in her time and it is assumed that she is the model for the swan princess.