New copy, Day One, "Before the Ballet" by Edgar Degas

After finishing my last copy, I wandered around the museum both in real life and on the NGA website to choose my next painting. I decided to copy something in the Impressionist area, because it's scheduled to close for renovation in February.

I chose "Before the Ballet" by Edgar Degas. Here is an image of the original painting, taken from the NGA website. (Fun fact: did you know that you can download high resolution images of all the artwork on their website?)

I find this composition very exciting! It's an unusual shape, very wide in relation to its height. The two dancers in the foreground are the focal point, and the toe of one of them is touching the edge of the door in the back wall, exactly halfway across the painting, and pointing at the little dancers in the back of the room. I also love the movement and action of all the figures as they stretch to get ready for the ballet.

The original painting measures 15 3/4 x 35 inches, and we copyists must stay at least two inches smaller or larger than either dimension. Using my husband's handy Excel spreadsheet that he made for me (thank you, Hal!) I decided to go with 13" x 28 8/9", which I rounded up to 29", since stretcher bars only come in whole inches. I figured the 1/9" difference wouldn't be that big of a deal. I stretched the canvas and drew some light pencil lines on it, marking halfway and quarter of the way in both directions. I also printed out a picture of the original and folded it in quarters. I marked the diagonals on both the printout and my canvas. I wasn't planning on relying too heavily on the printout, but I would just use it to double-check my placement of the figures, since it's so important to the composition to get it right. I could have done without this bit of help, but it would have taken to much longer to get it all correct.

Here is a picture of my printout, with the quarters and diagonals marked:

But first things first! Looking at the painting, I could see that Degas had toned his canvas. You can see that the color behind everything ranges from pink to ochre. So the first thing I did was paint a thin coat of color on my white canvas. I would later have to make it darker, but at least I wouldn't be starting from white. Then I used a small brush to place all the figures, the door, and the edges of the room.

I then started blocking in some color. I could see that Degas used basically greens, pinks, and ochres, but I googled "What pigments did Degas use?" I found out that he used Viridian green, ochres, and vermillion (a red which I didn't have with me, so I used quinacridone red and a little cadmium red light.) I think it's very cool to work with just these few colors, plus white. This is as far as I got when it was time to break for lunch:

After a long, relaxing lunch with my fellow copyists, it was back to work. I stopped for the day when I had finished putting some paint everywhere on the canvas. The underpainting of color needs to dry before I address adding green to the floor, so I'll tackle that next week. Here is where my copy stands now:

Next Thursday I will paint the floor, adding dabs of light Viridian green over the warm pinks and ochres. The back wall on the right is scumbled with a lighter tint of Viridian. I'll further develop the figures on the right and paint those little dancers stretching at the barre. I don't think I'll have to work very long on this, because it's not very large. Your comments are always welcome! (Click on "Post a Comment" at the bottom to leave a comment.)

Click the images for a larger view