When Botticelli woke up the morning after he had finished painting Venus, I wonder how he felt. Do you think he looked and thought... "Yes, Sandro. You've done it. A Masterpiece." Had he any inkling that it would become one of the most famous paintings in the world hundreds of years after he applied that final stroke to canvas? Do you think he woke with a smile? Was he happy? Was he proud of himself?
Well, I'm proud of myself! I sat down tonight for a quick sketch for 10 minutes or so. I'm planning a canvas of my own featuring the lady herself. I thought I'd try a quick graphite practice before I applied her features over my layers of collage on my big canvas.
Several hours later I put pencils down... It may be far removed from the work of a genius but this was, for me, a labour of love. I am not sure I ever enjoyed creating anything so much. I don't care if no one else thinks it is good apart from me and picks up on the mis-matched slightly wonky eyes. This was only ever meant to be a quick 10 minute sketch to get the feel for her. I just couldn't stop. I'm cold from sitting still so long and have a bit of backache from bending over my sketchbook. I had a soundtrack of just three songs playing on repeat keeping my Muse flowing. I daredn't change them for fear of scaring her off. My iTunes shows rather a large number of plays for Hayley Westenra this evening. I am so pleased with this piece.
Oh, and before I go to bed... One more thing. Look at that nose! I did it. I actually drew a nose I'm happy with. Well... I did have some guidance from a Master. Thanks Sandro!
The scan is a bit of a disappointment with some colours going awry and losing the blue background entirely, but you get the gist. And the original has some red blob on it because I was just using up a slightly damaged page in my sketchbook! Typical!
This seems the perfect post to share with Jamie Ridler's Happy Group this week as it certainly put a smile on my face :). It is also my first entry for the Following the Masters group - inspired as it is by the topic this month - the Italian Renaissance.
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