Paper and Threads

This is Week 4 of my online course and I'm still loving it.  This week mixed-media artist  Jenny Wentworth was apprenticed to Sandro Botticelli.  After watching videos about Botticelli, his techniques and paintings, Jenny painting two compositions - one to teach us about egg tempera, and the other using acrylic paints. 

I selected the Botticelli that I wanted to copy - A Woman Receiving a Gift From Venus and Three Graces.  This was a fresco from Villa Lemmi near Florence and the villa was owned by Giovanni Tornabuoni who was the uncle of Lorenzo Medici.  The fresco was discovered in 1873 under a layer of white wash - and was removed, transferred to canvas, and installed in the Louvre.  I selected one of the graces for my painting.

Here is my copy of the original - without the cracks in the fresco.

This is a watercolor, in which I added Titanium white gouache to do the textured painting in the background and on her robe.  I'd never used this technique, but loved the different quality of the opaque-watercolor tinted gouache.  The face and hair were painted with watercolor, without added gouache.   I used 10 X 14" Arches 140 lb Cold Press paper, Winsor-Newton watercolors, and Schminke Titanium White Gouache.

We are encouraged to take periodic photos of our painting, in progress, but I regularly forget.  This time I forgot to take a photo of the drawing, but then took a few intermediate photos with my cell phone. 

Stage 1 - After painting the background and robe

Stage 2 - After adding an underpainting for her hair with yellow ochre.

Stage 3 - After painting the face, neck and underpainting the inside of the robe color.

Next I need to watch more videos and then do my own composition in the style of Botticelli.