Greetings!

For this month, I have two different subjects for you to tackle.

1 – The first, is a Master whose work is quite popular here — William-Adolphe Bouguereau (France 1825-1905) — and I am featuring a beautiful painting of his that is in the collection of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts.

2 – Our second subject is a lovely red-haired young lady I know named Mairen, and I have a few photos of her that I’ll post.

1 –
As I’ve had the pleasure to see this Painting by Bouguereau in person, I was able to take some photos of it and will include some details here as well, for those who want to more clearly see his technique. I’ve Photoshopped the photos and other references to adapt the colours better to as I remember them.

The painting is called “Crown of Flowers” (en francais: “Parure des champs”) and it was painted in 1884.

(Note: Here is a link to it from the Art Renewal Centre website, though they have a different name for this painting) http://www.artrenewal.org/pages/artwork.php?artworkid=1074&size=huge

Details:


Here is another reference of the younger girl’s face that I found online at http://www.wallcoo.com:


Arms/ Hands:



Feet: note how loosely he painted the ground and grass.

Regarding painting as close to how Bouguereau painted as possible, I recommend the writings done by the artist Virgil Elliott. In his book, Traditional Oil Painting (Watson-Guptill, 2007), Virgil has included a section on “The Technique of William-Adolphe Bouguereau,” where he outlines the French Academic Method and includes a well-illustrated step-by-step demonstration. (This was also excerpted in the April 2008 issue of American Artist magazine.)

Virgil Elliott’s website: http://www.virgilelliott.com

2 –
Our second Portrait Challenge subject is Mairen: