007. Pablo Picasso: Woman with a Fan

My copy of Woman with a Fan

Picasso Women with a fan 1907 152x101 cm
Oil on canvas.
Currently on display at The Hermitage, St. Petersburg, Russia.

Woman with a Fan by Pablo Picasso

Painted during his African period; influenced by the French Colonial expansion at the time, the painting takes its influence from traditional African, Egyptian and Iberian sculpture. It is also a milestone on the way towards Cubism. 

I feel with this self-imposed challenge to copy a 100 paintings I have to include certain artists (no real justification apart from a feeling) and Picasso is one of them. Thankfully I am a fan and there is one of his works I do want to copy. However, I want to do that one when I am around eighty-ninety copies in. I am still playing catch up in writing this blog, but at the time I was struggling to come up with a painting to copy and I thought I would choose one of his works in a style I know (for the want of a better word) find uncomfortable, to see If I could learn anything. 

The colours I was not happy with

At the start of this painting, I still had quite a limited choice of colours and whilst I don’t believe to successfully copy a painting you need to match an original 1:1 on colour. You do have `to match its ‘Tonal Voice’ i.e. The emotion/statement/feel. I was not happy at all with the colours I was working with so I put it to one side for a while and got on with other paintings.

I then stumbled across this on the Tate website and credit where credit is due. 

https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/picasso-bust-of-a-woman-n05915/how-to-paint-like-picasso

There are lots of “How to paint like XX” things out there, and I appreciate the ones produced by galleries have to reach a wide audience, but in general, I find them too light in details. This pulled together by the artist Selwyn Leamy I found to be very informative and useful.  I can highly recommend checking it out. 

In addition to the colours mentioned, I also added in Red Ochre for the chair, so my final palette for the picture looked as follows; 

Pallete for copying Picasso

This was also a kick start for myself wanting to start this blog. I am currently working in acrylics but I want to switch to oil for my own stuff. I wanted to start recording what colours I am using and what I find interesting. In this case it’s Burnt Sienna. 

Burnt sienna I am finding to be similar in properties to Payne’s Grey which I have described as using an equaliser on an old eighties hi-fi. You don’t know what the result is going to be, but it is sure going to be fun twiddling. 

I mentioned in my copy of Marianne von Werefkin Night time fishing, there seemed to be a natural flow to how it was painted. With this; To try and capture some of the energy in the brush strokes I found the flow harsh and almost to the point of being violent. I did not enjoy painting like this. I do wonder if maybe like Picasso I had an opium addiction I would have had a different opinion. 

All in all, it was the right decision to copy something I found uncomfortable. It gave me the luxury of being able to focus on the art of copying rather than the art itself.