Monday Feb 27, 2023

BOUGUEREAU STUDIES

Today is an awkward day. We ran out of wood, so I'm taking a mental note to buy more cords come June. Anyway, we got a shipment of one cord today, but it does take the house a while to heat up, so I'm upstairs in my room where there's a radiator, huddled under the covers trying to warm my feet 🤣

Today, my art practice consists of drawing the faces in Bouguereau’s painting Madonna of the Lilies. I don't think my baby Jesus sketch looks like the original, and I do want to study the original a little better to get the proportions and facial expressions, so I will most likely re-draw tomorrow.

Also, happy day, these are done with my new Faber-Castell water-soluble graphite pencils, and I was so so happy with the blending capabilities. Once you apply water to the graphite on the page and let it dry, it stays put, so I was able to layer watercolour over the grey scale. So so exciting. 

(1) Graphite only

(2) The Madonna's face shaded by wetting the water-soluble graphite

(3) Watercolour layered over the water-soluble graphite. This was so super enjoyable for me

(4) The baby Jesus shaded by wetting the water-soluble graphite

(5) I'm sad that I lost some of the white space in the hair here, but this is the sketch with watercolour layered over the graphite.

Looking forward to doing more tomorrow!

Detail of original painting:

La Vierge au lys 

W.A. Bouguereau

Oil, 1899

Thanks for reading!