For the love of ruffles
I saw this “long neck lady” (as my friend Cody perfectly puts it) at the Legion of Honor in San Francisco and what struck me at first was her long elegant neck, pink ruffles and what seemed like black leather sleeves (so hardcore). I am a sucker for anything from England in the late 1700’s-early 1800’s and I started to copy her form with pencil on butcher paper, while, well, watching Emma (the TV show).
As this became an ongoing project, I decided to make some artistic changes to her, most obviously an even more dramatic neckline with pink magnolias surrounding her. It’s funny how much detail you uncover when you study a piece of art. I noticed many things that I didn’t notice at first. One being that I realized that the pink ruffles with the black sleeve was not a leather top but a cape that was draped around her. My version was completed mostly with small pencil strokes in blue, blush, and brown and then completed with oil pastels in dark blue, blush, and black to give a contrasting shine.
Thomas Lawrence - Mary, Countess of Plymouth (oil on canvas)
