In your inspiration right this moment: Anna by Swedish painter Bruno Liljefors.
(Click on right here to obtain a high-resolution photograph of the portray.)
What I really like most about this portray is the attention-grabbing mixture of realism and free, painterly brushwork. Liljefors painted the topic (Anna) with nice rendering and readability while the remainder of the portray is extra relaxed and impressionistic. There’s no mistaking what the point of interest is and the place Liljefors desires us to look.
The nice rendering additionally performs into the character of the topic, along with her hair executed up, good clothes and accessories, and youthful and female qualities. The free, impressionistic brushwork performs into the character of nature and its untamed and unrefined magnificence.
There’s a nice combine of sentimental and exhausting edges. The smooth edges ease the transition between the topic and the environment. The exhausting edges add readability and draw our consideration in direction of the point of interest. They’re like exclamation factors within the portray.
The hat on the bottom performs an necessary function. It offers our eyes one thing else to bounce between. The place of it helps draw our consideration into the portray. There’s a delicate coloration hyperlink between the purple accents on the hat and the topic’s lips. And it’s additionally a part of a free zig-zag movement that takes our eyes on a journey to the point of interest (see the picture beneath).
If we slim in on nature, a number of intricate leaves and flowers do a lot of the work. The whole lot else is reasonably easy and obscure. Sir Arthur Streeton additionally did this fairly successfully in a lot of his landscapes.
My solely criticism is that the topic seems to be a bit stiff and inflexible. That could be because of the pose or the topic’s clothes, however regardless, I believe a bit extra fluidity might go a great distance. (It’s necessary to search for methods you would possibly enhance or do in another way when analyzing grasp work. This helps take the grasp artists down off a pedestal so we will see them for who they have been: artists identical to us.)
Thanks for studying! In the event you ever wish to study extra, begin with my Portray Academy course.
Dan Scott
Draw Paint Academy