Happy birthday to Austrian artist Gustav Klimt!  

oil and (faux) gold leaf on canvas, 4’x2’

klimt and sargent pencil master copies

anne recently advised me to keep drawing despite a lack of inspiration:

Inspiration is a finicky thing.  I forgot who said it, but I recall an artist saying that it’s important to produce work (any work) because it will lead to new avenues of discovery, whereas stagnation fosters nothing.

thank you :)

so here’s the old art school trick— copy the masters.  granted, these ar only quick pencil copies, but it was fun to see how each painter’s style influenced the way i held the pencil.  i found that i miss working in nuanced value like sargent— it’s softer and the process was less scratchy.  i had to carve out much of the klimt drawing.  

looking back, i noticed one of the things i toned down in klimt’s painting is the crazy warp-i-ness of her face.  that’s something i’ve always admired about his work: the faces are so freaking melty but somehow beautiful.