Degas is one of my favorite impressionist artists. I love his paintings of Ballet Dancers. I was really happy to find of book of Degas Drawings of Dancers on Amazon. The book contains 41 pages of Degas' drawings-some are sketches or preparatory studies and some are finished drawings. Like many artists, I like to copy the works of the Masters in order to improve my drawing skills so this book was just what I was looking for. After helping my husband clear our driveway after the last snow bombardment (3 ft. this time)I shoveled a path to our mailbox so our mail carrier would have no trouble delivering my books. The book arrived on Saturday and by Saturday evening I had chosen my drawing-"Battements" on the Toes at the Barre. Since I usually draw animals the initial blocking in was a little awkward. I had no prior experience in drawing a person but found that once I got past the initial blocking in, the actual drawing got a lot easier.
Brittany has found that one of the perks of having a mother who is an artist is that she never has to buy art work unless she wants a particular piece. Having just moved into a new apartment she has been asking for paintings and prints to decorate her walls. She knows that I am only to happy to oblige and that I usually have finished works laying around my studio that I can frame and send off to her. This painting reminds me of Brittany when she studied ballet so this one is destined to be sent to her.
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| Preparatory sketch. |
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| Under painting in progress. |
For this painting I used Masters Touch watercolors (available at Hobby Lobby) and Canson watercolor paper. I've tried other brands of watercolor paper including Strathmore but Canson is my favorite. I like the tooth of the paper, it tends to hold the color a little better than the other papers that I have tried. The Dancer's arms and legs were done with a preliminary wash of flesh; the dress is a wash of rose and white to make a light pink; the bow is rose plus the light pink mixture and the shoes are light pink mix and flesh to make a ballet pink. The dress is painted with a wash of light pink and blended out from the edges to the middle by loading a clean brush with water, then picking up the paint along the edges with the brush and painting toward the center.
