PPF: My final Modigliani

Several months ago, I began a Modigliani challenge, sponsored by Ayala.  You can read about the challenge in this post. I chose four different Modigliani paintings to copy and finished the first three in March.  This last one has been sitting in my art journal, half-finished, for quite a while. I chose Paint Party Friday to finish it up, and I'm pretty happy with it! I've been playing with water colors a lot lately, and it was really nice to return to using acrylic paints. Ayala is currently running a 29 faces challenge in May; check it out if you're interested. (I did her 29 faces in February challenge and really liked it.) Thanks for the challenge Ayala, and thanks to Eva and Kristin for sponsoring Paint Party Friday - it really does inspire me to pull out my paints at least once a week and exposes me to new fabulous artists.  You can check out this week's party by clicking on this link.

Modigliani Monday: Granny's Photo Album

The Gingersnap Creations blog has a challenge titled "Granny's Photo Album," and it inspired me to create this art journal page.  The journaling reads "Every little girl deserves to feel like a princess.  The image is a photo of my mom which I altered using this Modigliani painting as an inspiration:

It was a lot of fun to transform my mom's image and even more fun to create the collage. It's been a while since I messed around in my mixed media bin.  For this page, I used sewing patterns, napkins, flowers, Graphic 45 paper, a vintage dictionary page on which I had stamped/resisted a bee, and some other fun embellies. Lots of shades of acrylic paint, too! Thanks so much for the inspiration. Who knew there was a Modigliani waiting in Grandma's photo album?

Modigliani Monday

This month Ayala is hosting this challenge to paint pictures based upon the work of the artist Modigliani.  I started this week and have made pretty good progress.  The first one I completed was this watercolor:

based upon this painting:

It's a reasonably accurate representation, and I got some good experience working with my watercolors.  But. . .

it many ways, it didn't really feel like me.  So, I stared at this painting for a while:

And looked at an article called "Narrative Collage" by Anne E. Quinlan in the Jan./Feb. 2009 edition of Cloth Paper Scissors, and I came up with this:

Now that's much better!  Much more me! And very much where I want all this painting practice to be able to take me in my art journaling.  I've got a representational acrylic painting in the works and another narrative collage. Thanks Ayala for encouraging me to practice and for giving me the opportunity to find my muse.

Modigliani Challenge

Ayala, who hosted the 29 Faces Challenge in February is hosting a Modigliani Challenge in March.  The idea is to choose four Modigliani paintings and reproduce them.  I think it's an intriguing idea, and I selected these four paintings:

I'm looking forward to giving this a try, but I have to admit that I'm not sure what the results will be like.  One of the best classes I ever took was a class taught by Dina Wakley where we drew inspiration from various artists.  I'm not sure if I'll go for true reproductions r work on drawing inspiration.  We'll see what happens.  Either way, it's truly a challenge and a stretch for me, which I think is a good thing.  When was the last time you really stretched your artistic muscles?