Watercolour Paintings by Ellen Catherwood, PSC, CSPWC

Copy of a Master Work- Paul Peel's "Modest Model"

This painting is being done for a few reasons.  Our art club is challenging it's members to copy one of the master works of art as a learning experience.  The traditional way that art students used to learn wouold be to copy old masters and learn by following in their brush strokes.  Since this won't be for sale and will be on my walls for a long time, I decided to paint one of my favourite paintings.  This will be the largest I have ever worked (it is 23 x 34") and for those interested in details, it is done on Fabriano Artistico Extra White hot press 140 lb paper with Winsor & Newton, DaVinci, and Daniel Smith watercolour paints.  The original was done in oils so when I am finished, I will give it a coat of acrylic gloss medium to simulate the same look.

Step 1:

I started out by drawing it out.  This proved to be much harder than usual.  I don't have a high resolution copy of it so I am using a 4 x 6" photo of it downloaded from the internet (I can't enlarge it because of the low resolution).  Usually I just draw a few lines for positioning and then start painting.  This time I needed a lot more drawing, and on the artists face, I even needed to add shading to make sure I got his expression just right.  I will be erasing those lines as I go.

I am learning a lot about the way he composed the original painting already.  He broke the rules of composition by dividing the painting right down the center.  The figure on the right is light against a dark background and the figure on the left is dark against a light background.  I am hoping to learn a lot from painting this.