Saturday, September 5, 2009

Another experiment with Arabesque gowns

"Arabesque Bridal Gowns"
11" x 14"
Mixed watermedia

Thanks to Peggy Stermer-Cox for her suggestion that the background should be more geometric on the piece that was not working. Great idea. This my experimental piece that needs repainting to be a finished piece.

I cut the paper down and changed the scene to a quarter sheet landscape orientation, rather than a half sheet portrait. I looked on the Web for blurbs about the show at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, last spring and found the Arabic symbol on the left (this is only part of it) that was their logo for the show. The other two symbols are stamps that I own and are decorative lines used in the Arab culture.

Having recently taken Gerald Brommer's class, I boldly went where I never dared before -- I gessoed out the background. I then used acrylics which are very new for me to paint in the new background, with the exception of the floor rug done in watercolor. I am much happier with the feel of this design.

6 comments:

Christiane Kingsley said...

Mary, wow! You made a lot of creative changes to this painting.I really liked it before, but I even like it better now. It's great when you come back from a workshop and suddenly realize that you have new additions in your bag of tricks.
I should experiment more with the gesso.
Christiane

Mary Paquet said...

Chritiane, thanks for the nice comments. Jerry really gave us permission to do anything we want--it's our painting, as he says. The gesso is a great tool.

Anonymous said...

Stunning Mary! I like how the figures lock in with the back ground,including lost edges with merging with the white in the lines. Very imaginative!

Mary Paquet said...

Thanks, Peggy. You sure helped me along with your suggestion for a geometric background. I had fun with the redo.

janice said...

Mary-this is so much stronger than the earlier renditions of the subject. A bolder background is often counterintuitive, but it's just what you needed here! Very nice work-I applaud your persistence.

Mary Paquet said...

Janice, thanks for checking in again. Peggy got me on track with the geometric idea, and I figured I had nothing to lose by reworking the piece.