Finished: Young Girl Reading by Jean Honore Fragonard

{final week: detail of the face at end of day}

Hello,

I have been a bit remiss in keeping you updated about the progress of my copy of a Young Girl Reading by Fragonard. Right before getting sick I had visited the gallery, finishing up the dress and scraping down the face again. So this is how the painting looked at the end of the day three visits ago...


{week 5: end of day status}

Then after being sick for what seemed like an eternity I was able to get back to the NGA last week Thursday for the sixth time to work on this painting. This is not my typical day, but because of feeling fatigued last week Monday I asked to postpone my painting day to later in the week. This gave me a few more days of rest and enabled me to get a lot done when I was back in the gallery. During the sixth week I totally reworked the face and head, neglecting all other aspects of the composition.


{week 6: end of day status}

This Monday I was back on my regular schedule and the goal was to refine different areas of the painting, and to soften the face some...


{final week: end of day status}

From this experience I gained the knowledge that copying a portrait is a lot more challenging than copying a still life because I found myself warring with my personal inclination of how to apply paint and striving to copy the soft strokes of Fragonard. I wanted both. Then ultimately my personality won and I ended up with a more chromatically charged painting than the original.

This also occurred when painting the copy of the Vase of Flowers.

Because I would like to be able to better emulate the artists I copy, I am going to start a new one immediately, and it is going to be another portrait. I will share details of this new project with you later.

Until then, good night and thanks for stopping by,

Liz

Week 4: Young Girl Reading by Jean-Honore Fragonard

{end of day status}

Yesterday I was back in gallery 55 at the NGA to work on my copy. The day was focused on correcting the structure of the girl's head and then deciding I needed a little more space from the constant re-working of this part of the painting, so I decided to move onto the dress. Instead of trying to copy every single stroke with deliberate control I am trying to capture the energy of the composition and paint the gist of the folds and puckers of the collar and dress.

You will notice that I also laid in the yellow ochre background again, this is because I got the burnt umber ground too dark and thought it would be best if I just went back to the original value of what the ground was. Next week I will go back and lay in the background in again and this time making sure my values are more in line with the original painting.

Thanks for visiting and being a part of this learning process,
Liz

Week 3: Young Girl Reading by Jean-Honore Fragonard

Last week I was at the NGA to work on the copy of Fragonard's Young Girl Reading on Thursday. For the first part of the day I worked on correcting the structural issues of the painting, working to get the scale of the girl correct. I worked until lunch time on just focusing on this aspect.

The day was a particularly gray and dark day which affects the quality of light of the museum's galleries, something I did not really notice in the morning because I was so intent on correcting the drawing aspect of the painting. It was only when I came back from lunch did the difference really seem aparent to me. Each painting in the gallery has a spotlight that has a warm tint to it, where the easels are solely reliant on the natural light that filters into the galleries via the skylights above. This difference in light quality was affecting my ability to get color and value accuracy because the light on the painting was so different than the light on my canvas.

Here is a photo taken just after lunch with my painting on the easel and the original on the wall.


{middle of day status - with different light qualities}

Here is another photo where I set my painting under the original painting to compare color and value differences. See the light ground behind the pillow, how different it is on the easel versus when propped up under the original painting, while working on this painting I also need to work on adjusting for this shift in color temperature also.


{middle of day status - with the same light quality}

So my time spent after lunch was a combination of getting the drawing correct while also adjusting the color and values some.

Tomorrow I return to the NGA, Monday is my regular day to paint, so hopefully it will be a bright and sunny day to warm up the natural light some. I need to work on the structure of the head some more and will hopefully be able to move on to other parts of the painting as well.


{end of day status}

Week 2: Young Girl Reading by Jean-Honore Fragonard

{end of the day in gallery 55}

Hello,

This Monday was my second day working on Young Girl Reading by Fragonard. I started the day laying in layers of burnt umber and wiping away to vary the values. Later as the day went along I started to lay in the yellow of the dress and the lighter tones of the pillow and collar. After lunch I started blocking in the head, re-working it several times and by the end of the day knowing that something was off.

When working on a copy I do not trace or scale using a grid because each time I paint I want to further hone my skills at adjusting for scale and proportion, and my canvas is smaller (28" x 20") than the original painting (approx 32" x 25") so the opportunity to use a direct "sight-size" method when blocking in the painting is not possible. This is okay, because I have ways to learn and figure out where I have gone wrong...

I use photoshop to analyze what is going on...


{my copy and the original painting overlayed in photoshop}

From this image it is easy to identify where proportionally things have gone astray. The young girl in my copy is more narrow and tall than the original, in fact with further analysis I realize that her head has become much more elongated, making her look older and more mature.

So next week will probably be all about correcting these issues before moving on and getting more of the painting completed.

Week 1: Young Girl Reading by Jean-Honore Fragonard

{blank canvas and ready to go}

Hello,

On Monday I was back at the NGA to begin the next copy, which is Jean-Honore Fragonard's Young Girl Reading. Typically I start with a neutral gray ground when beginning a painting, and since I buy rolls of canvas and apply the ground to the entire roll this is what I had available in my studio to begin the painting. However on investigating the original painting I realized that Fragonard painted this painting on a creamy neutral ground.

In this photo of the Fragonard painting you can sort of see the creamy ground of the painting, the thickness of the paint varies with the ground peeping through in many places.


{the original painting}

The first step was to get my base color correct. I used a mixture of yellow ochre, cremnitz white, and a smidgen of raw umber thinned with oderless mineral spirits (OMS) for this base coat.


{mid-day status}

After getting the cream ground on I worked at blocking in the image, the goal was for accuracy and proportions. I then left for lunch giving the paint an hour to set up some.


{end of day status}

After getting back, I reworked some areas adjusting proportion and then I proceded to remove the majority of the burnt umber lines I had placed before lunch. This is because the subsequent layers of paint will be various levels of opacity and I do not want my initial drawing lines to shine through when I am finished with this piece.

I am really looking forward to working on this copy, the brushstrokes are so loose and full of energy, something so very different from the tight control found in the de Heem painting...