After a long hiatus (almost a year) I returned to the National Gallery today to start a new copy. I had stretched a canvas to what I thought was the proper size of at least 2" smaller than the original, and was all set to begin copying a Cezanne landscape. However, when the Registrar in charge of copyists measured my canvas, she found that one of the sides was only 1 and 15/16" smaller than the original, instead of the required two inches. Only a sixteenth of an inch, but she wouldn't budge, because Rules are Rules. Luckily, I still had a canvas in the locker room for this painting, "Emonde Maître" by Frédéric Bazille, which I had been going to paint last summer, but instead took the aforementioned hiatus. She renewed my permit for that painting, and I shifted mental gears, and started copying M. Maître.
Turns out, this is an engaging portrait to copy. The subject had a very delicate bone structure, visible because of his leanness. I took this photo after working all morning on getting everything correctly drawn on my canvas. I spent a lot of time carefully measuring and remeasuring. After lunch, I adjusted my drawing and covered almost all the canvas with paint - my first shot at getting the colors and values right. Unfortunately, I forgot to take a picture at the end of the day, so you have to wait until next Friday. I'll photograph it before I get started next week so you can see how far I got on Day 1. Click on the image for a larger view.
Today I only painted on this for two hours. I worked on the head and the hand with the cigar. Then I left early to see the new self-portrait exhibit at the National Portrait Gallery up the street.
As promised, here is the copy before I started working on it on Day 2. I had everything blocked in, but the colors and values are not yet right.
Day 2, after working in the morning. I had spent time on the hands, but not the face yet. Sorry it's out of focus - I really should use a tripod to photograph in this low light without a flash.
Here we are at the end of Day 2. It's coming along, but I can see that I don't have the gesture of the pose quite right. M. Maître's head is actually a little more tipped forward, and his hands should be smaller. Click on the image for a larger view, and you can see how mine compares with the original.We'll see how much patience I have to make the changes next week.
After a long hiatus (almost a year) I returned to the National Gallery today to start a new copy. I had stretched a canvas to what I thought was the proper size of at least 2" smaller than the original, and was all set to begin copying a Cezanne landscape. However, when the Registrar in charge of copyists measured my canvas, she found that one of the sides was only 1 and 15/16" smaller than the original, instead of the required two inches. Only a sixteenth of an inch, but she wouldn't budge, because Rules are Rules. Luckily, I still had a canvas in the locker room for this painting, "Emonde Maître" by Frédéric Bazille, which I had been going to paint last summer, but instead took the aforementioned hiatus. She renewed my permit for that painting, and I shifted mental gears, and started copying M. Maître.
