Courage – Daily Therapy for Artists

“In my willingness to accept uncertainty, solutions will spontaneously appear out of the problem, disorder and chaos.”  Unknown

Courage – Daily Therapy for Artists

“There’s no use trying.” [Alice] said: “one can’t believe impossible things.”

“I daresay you haven’t had much practice,” said the Queen. “When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day.  Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”  

Through the Looking-Glass Lewis Carroll

Copy Famous Paintings – Gustav Klimt

What is it?

“The Kiss“, Gustav Klimt 1907-1908, Oil and gold leaf on canvas.

How was the painting done?

The painting is done in flat blocks of colour with an emphasis on design and influences from the Japanese art of Ukiyo-e.  The male figure is shown as square and rectangular and the female with soft lines and floral patterns.  Klimt has combined visual arts with ornament on a square canvas in oil and applied layers of gold leaf.

Why should we care?

Klimt went against his academic training to create his own eclectic, decorative, erotic and fantastic style.  He combined influences from the Arts and Craft Movement,  Art Nouveau and Japonisme.  There had been prior opposition to art which had been considered “decorative“.  Klimt was brave enough to challenge those beliefs and we today, are the lucky beneficiaries.

Where can I find more paintings like this?

You will see similar decorative patterning in the work of Egon Schiele and Margaret Macdonald Mackintosh.

Meditate, relax and enjoy

There can be no mistakes in making this painting.  Everything ends up as it should be.  Take the luxury of “time out” to recreate this fabulous painting in acrylics yourself, here’s how:

 You will need

• a small canvas, 30cm x 40cm is a good size
• tubes of primary acrylic colours, blue, red and yellow plus white
• a dark watercolour crayon
• 3 soft nylon paint brushes, (small, medium and a little larger)
• water in an old container
• a rag or disposable cloth
• an hour or two

Tips on the Process

• prime the canvas first, otherwise, just a wash and dry with a towel
• print the photo you want to work from, measure and cut into quarters to make your drawing in a grid
• turn the original photo upside down to make the drawing
• use a dark coloured water colour crayon for your drawing
• correct drawing right-side up from the original
• erase crayon easily with a damp cloth
• it is okay for the watercolour crayon mark to bleed into the painting
• everything is easily painted over with acrylics
• paint in the background first
• try not to use paint directly from the tube; experiment with how to mix colours
• create a perfect skin tone by blending warm yellow, warm red, a dot of cool blue and lots of white, experiment first
• acrylics dry darker than the mixed colour

The Drawing Process

Turn your photo upside down and draw the space around the drawing first.  This is just a framework to place the figures on the page and you can easily correct right-side up with the dampened cloth as I have done below.  I mostly worked upside down so I was concerned only with shapes.

Otherwise, you may use my drawing below.  I suggest you ask your copy shop to print the PDF below onto a canvas and proceed to make your own unique painting.  Otherwise, you can print the copy on to good quality paper, paint the picture and frame it.  It’s your painting after all!

Image from https://www.belvedere.at/gustav-klimt, accessed 12/10/2016

Courage – Daily Therapy for Artists

Gratitude: “To give thanks. Give things. Give thoughts. Give love. So gratitude becomes the gift, creating a cycle of giving and receiving, the endless waterfall. Filling up and spilling over… perhaps not even to the giver but to someone else, to whoever crosses one’s path. It is the simple passing on of the gift.”  Robert Emmons 

 

Courage – Daily Therapy for Artists

“A man is lucky if he is the first love of a woman. A woman is lucky if she is the last love of a man.”  Charles Dickens

Courage – Daily Therapy for Artists

“Start where you are.  Distant fields always look greener, but opportunity lies right where you are.  Take advantage of every opportunity or service.”  Robert Collier

Courage – Daily Therapy for Artists

“The ultimate measure of a man (or woman) is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.”  Martin Luther King, Jr.

Is Martin Luther King Jr. saying that our actions define us?