Bouguereau challenge

[Barbara Mae Hudson]

Hello everyone!

Because I admire Bouguereau so much and I do so want to improve my work in every way I set myself a very difficult challenge and I have attached the results.

I am reasonably happy with the results considering that I am not, and never will be any where near the goal set by myself......who is?

Any comments by yourselves are always appreciated.

Thank you for looking.

Barbara

[Virginia Branch]

Very well done! I especially like the first one. He has always been one of my favorite artists. In college, I had one of his posters up on my wall.
Again, they are lovely - nice work.

[Michele Rushworth]

I also like the first one best. If you'd like some more detailed critiques it would be helpful if you could post the original images that you were copying.

[Elizabeth Schott]

Barbara, did you find yourself scumbling a lot towards the end? I did a just a head study of the first one and it was a great learning tool.

[Barbara Mae Hudson]

Thank you Elizabeth, Michele and Virginia.

Michele. I have attached my reference photo for the first one as that seems to be the best, that is, going on the reaction from you good people. I don't know whether I have the other two reference shots and may have deleted them. They were of course, taken from the internet.

I am going to have a browse on the internet to find another picture to copy from the Masters. Does anybody know where I can get good quality large format jpg files from? It is a bit of a struggle when the files are so small.

Virginia. Yes, I did find copying Bourguereau a great learning tool and a joy to copy. I did scumble a lot towards the end.

Thanks for looking and commenting.

Barbara

[Elizabeth Schott]

Barbara here are two great places:

Artchive

This a site run by Mark Harden, it is free but has ads, unless you want to join for 50.00, which I highly recommend because it becomes password protected, ads go away and he sends you some great cds of the site with all the images.

The other is the ARC - Art Renewal Center

[Jen Reinstadler]

The one thing that really stands out to me is the color. Bouguereau's flesh is very green in the shadows. Your flesh (light and shadow ) are pretty red. But very nice job overall!

[Barbara Mae Hudson]

Thanks Beth and Jen.

Beth. I visited artchive and the file sizes and quality are just what I've wanted so thank you very much for that, I wish I had have known about this site earlier! Never mind, better late than never! I have dowloaded a few and I'm torn between 'Meditation' and 'Bathing child' for my next challenge.

Jen. Yes, I do agree with you on the flesh tones but whenever I try to match Bouguereau's skin tones they turned out very muddy so I went with what I knew worked for me. However, I think that I will have another attempt on this next challenge.

Thanks again

Barbara