I got here throughout this beautiful portray the opposite day titled La Chula by María Sorolla:
At first look, I assumed it was by THE Sorolla. However seems it was by one among his daughters, María. I went down a couple of rabbit holes concerning her life and work, however I’ll save that for an additional day. I’ll concentrate on the portray for now.
It’s a high-key portray, which means all the colours are across the gentle finish of the worth scale. That is high-key portray at its greatest, the place the colours nearly seem to shimmer.
Right here’s a grayscale of the portray. Discover how flat it seems with out coloration. We are able to nonetheless make out the topic, however it actually lacks distinction. This tells us that hue and saturation are doing many of the heavy lifting and worth is enjoying extra of a secondary position.
The topic’s hair and facial options act as darkish accents and assist anchor the portray. They make the encircling colours seem lighter by comparability. Additionally they focus our consideration on the topic’s face (our eyes are drawn to distinction).
The colour theme is nice and analogous, with varied inexperienced, blue, and purple tones. The purple lips give a touch of heat. The lights are additionally heat in relation to the shadows, which performs into the concept she’s bathed in daylight, maybe outdoors in her backyard.
I’m undecided who the topic is. I couldn’t discover a lot details about the portray. She appears to be like off to the facet with a vacant stare. Though she’s the point of interest of the portray, it doesn’t seem to be she is aware of it.
I at all times discover work like this with open-ended inquiries to be fascinating. Who’s she? What’s she pondering? Why is she so effectively dressed? The place is she? It jogs my memory of Frederick McCubbin’s portray, The Pioneer, which leaves you questioning who the individual is within the ultimate part of the triptych. An excellent lesson right here is that you simply don’t must reply each query for the viewer. It may be good to depart them with a touch of curiosity.
Anyway, I’ll ship one other e mail once I get an opportunity about these rabbit holes I discussed earlier.
Till then, blissful portray!
For those who ever need to be taught extra, begin with my Portray Academy course.
Dan Scott
Draw Paint Academy