Portrait in a Trompe-l'oeil
 

Hi,
here is my first attempt of integrating a portrait in a trompe-l'oeil and It was a lot of fun to paint, though it needed more preparatory work than usual...
21" X 28" , oil on wood pannel. The wire is real.

This is impeccably executed and astonishing in that execution and in the concept. And how much fun it is to study this! I don't often get to say that I really had fun viewing a painting.

Words quite fail me here, other than -- Wow! You obviously are without limits in your skills.

Great idea, perfect execution, flawless illusion. This is just astonishing, Marina!
Ilaria

Hello Marina - well, that's just marvelous. The trompe-l'oeil is a very clever idea and works beautifully in this one, but the drawing and the painting of flesh is what I really, really like. The subtle changes in brightness of the white from the near shoulder to the far one, and from the chest to the belly and also to the head. And the use of blue in the light areas and orange in the shadows. And the marvelous foreshortening on the near arm - thrilling.

I had an idea when viewing my son's pictures in his viewfinder (the thing you look through and see two images of the the same picture but each one from a slightly different angle for each eye - so you see the picture in binocular three-dimensionality). As I saw the pictures binocularly I was really urged to paint the shadows and light, but, funnily enough, when I closed one eye I lost that urge to paint them. I was convinced that that is what painting realism was about - to paint reality seen binocularly, i.e with either side of a 3-d object seen from a different eye and subsequently a slightly different angle.

You have that in this picture, and that's what makes it thrilling. I presume you painted it from a photo and so have been extra good at creating a binocular reality because you've had to use your instinct and imagination to bring in what photos lack. There's a sense of movement when you create this binocular reality, and you have that here. The child's arm seems to be shifting slightly up and down and back and forth. Lovely, wonderful. You deserve a stream of first prizes!

Marvelous! Marvelous! What a treat! Thank you so much for sharing.

When you say the wire is "real," what isn't real? Is it a rectangular painting with a crescent removed?

Thank you Steven,
yes trompe-l'oeil have always something fun to watch, even if the subject is serious: it's the pleasure of being fooled by a painting.
I love, when I finish a trompe-l'oeil that people don't notice it at the begining ,then come closer and closer and don't dare to ask, and finally finish to put a finger on it to see if it's real or not. If I had been less honest, I think I would have like to be a forger.

Thanks Ilaria!

Hi Thomasin,
it was the first time I painted a figure on wood panel, and I felt more comfortable than on canvas. I felt that the very smooth texture allowed me more subtlety in the tones and values. ( and a baby skin IS very subtle)
When I began to work seriously from life : I did as I had read in books : close one eye and mesure, but the more I worked, the more I realised that my intuition was telling me something different from the mesure I was taking. When I was folowing the mesure, the drawing was bad, and when I was folowing my intuition the drawing was better. These last months, I joined a group of quick drawings from life, and we were making some 15 seconds, 30 seconds portraits( so really no time to mesure!), and when long poses of 3 or 5 minutes arrived, I could catch good proportions and likeness: it was very revealing to me...
Ted Seth Jabobs wrote something about this:
"We will not use any mechanical props, such as sticks and plumb lines.
Their use leads to inaccuracies. To begin, in order to use them, it is
necessary to close one eye. Monocular vision (as in photography)
diminishes the noble amplitude of forms."

The trompe-l'oeil is even something slightly different, you have to change some perpective and some values to make it more real. With objects, you often have to push the contrasts and the edges, and I was very interrested to see how it could work with a figure, because you can not treat it the same way as a book...
I'm glad you saw a movement in it, it means my experimentation works...
Thank you for your kind comment!

Hi Lisa,
Thank you!
I'm going to take a photo from the back of the painting, so you will understand better than with words.

This is really something else! The concept is very good in that it keeps the viewer wondering for a long time which part is real and which part is illusion. This reminds me of Murillo

Carlos,
I just had a look at Murillo's self-portrait : I don't know why I had never seen it ( maybe the choice of french editors?) What terrible lack in my culture ! Well, It's a great self-portrait . I always loved the painting in the painting.
Thanks for your comment!

Here are some photos of the back and the front of the object : the panel was cut with a jig-saw, and the wire is real and is the hanging system.
Here are also a detail of the painted frame, and a detail of the pomegranate.

Wonderful! And you have lovely hands too. :) A very clever concept. Ireally enjoyed seeing the closeup of the frame.

Marina! This just leaves me speechless! I think I saw it in process, somehow--maybe in the photos you sent. Even in process it looked like it was something new and special, but the finished product leaves me awestruck in so many ways.

Frst of all, the illusion is fascinating, not only becase it is so well done, but also because it does not seem gimmicky, but purposeful, as if the baby had something to do with the picture falling out of its frame and is now connecting itself with the action by leaning on the frame and emerging from the illusary picture plane.

The other striking thing is the totally convincing texture of the baby's skin and hair, her classically positioned hands, and the mythological implications of the pomegranate. Just that pomegranate in her hands could be the subject of the painting because of the way you've contrasted her totally unself-conscious gesture, her innocence, with this heavily symbolic fruit. But the fact is that you have all these other layers of interesting things including the flawless techique, strong concept, purposeful execution of your concept, and all the illusion to occupy the viewer's attention.

You go girl! Go all the way with this one!

That's a wonderful piece Marina.
I showed that to some of my friends and everybody thinks that's stunning.
Congrats.

Dear Marina,

I join everyone being speechless yet delightfully enchanted! Even having seen a preview of this, somewhere along the way, nothing could convince me you painted that perfectly real frame until you revealed the back side. This is totally magical, and as Alex rightfully points out, not gimicky! The concept appears so natural; one would expext a toddler to be found in such a humorous dilemma. I have also painted a few cut-out figures in the past, and this is way better in perfection of trompe-l'oeil than I have ever witnessed. You have me in complete awe. :thumbsup: :thumbsup:

Garth

Alex, Claudemir, Bonfim: thank you all!

Until recently, I was thinking that trompe-l'oeil and figures were too different to be mixed, except painting an object or a piece of paper over a portrait. The begining of this concept came from a study for a commissioned trompe-l'oeil. As I was completely fascinated by painting babies, I just naturally thought to put a baby in a frame: The client didn't like the idea. After playing a bit with this idea, I decided to do it anyway because it appeared to me so evident, like if this painting had to exist. It's a bit like if all the differents roads I took in my life were meeting here...
I'm very glad that you feel the concept looks natural, because for me it was something absolutely natural, as if this concept was floating in the air and I just caught it to give it a physical form.

Gasp!
 

Absolutely, positively original and beautiful! Your painting defines wall presence.

I'm going to break my brushes and go weep in the corner.

Marina, this is wonderful. Congratulations on yet another successful work of art.

Where's the bowing-down smiley? :thumbsup: :thumbsup:

This strkes me as a perfect example of the process of how we artists achieve a breakthrough in finding our unique styles. It is strange how we can start out thinking that different things we are interested in (different subjects or ways of painting) have to be kept separate. Maybe they have to start out existing separately in our minds in order for us to appreciate the significance of their coming together.

This is such a fascinting realization and I think it will have a major effect on your creatvity and career from here on.

Marina, I am so glad to her and see that you are rediscovering your love for art. I love this combination baby in frame and you have proved it can work. Thank you for sharing your joy and your art with us.

Wish you all the best

Fantastic, Marina!

As well as exhibiting your usual flawless execution, this is another challenge to me to stretch for the original concept.

Marina, I love your ideas. You not only can paint fantastically, but have a real nack to keep us captivated time after time. Absolutely awesome!

Thank you all!

In fact, this is the first of a series of 3, in the same frame. The second pannel is already cut and is wainting to be painted ( It will have to wait few months I think) and the third is still at the stage of an idea in my note book... I think that I will try to take the references soon, because it's a long process between several photo sessions, and the finish painting. If I wait too much, I loose a bit my enthousiasm and my interrest for my idea. If I dream it too much, it's as if I already painted it, and so I want to move to the next subject which is still new and exciting...

Alex,
I agree with you. It can be a long process, but when the unification of our differents interrests arrives, it's an interresting moment which justify years of research, questions, try, mistakes...

Wow, Marina this looks great! :) Wonderful work.

Your name is M.D.
A successful C-section! ( in posiositive meaning)

Thanks, Nancy Bea. Nice to see you on the Forum!

Thank you SB.

Wow, fascinating!
Very creative!
Painting outside the box... so to speak!
Tony

Thank you Tony!

Here is another photo I took with a black background. I wanted to get rid of the shadow on the wall, and also it gives a more sparkling look to the frame...

Marina
Simple STUNNING composition and technique. I would love to know your palette for baby and frame. It lookes as though it is mostly all earth colours. I can't stop looking at it. Wow your intuition is certainly very strong. Keep listening to it, I can't wait to see the rest of the series. Are they going to be for a competition?

Thank you Ngaire,
yes my palette is mostly earth colors ( yellow ochre, terra rosa, indian red, raw umber + black and white) and also cad red and ultramarine .I added cad yellow to those colors for the frame.
I found that it was an easier way ( for me) to begin to control skin tones with earth colors, now I quietly experiment with other colors.
It's my goal for this year, to enter in competitions, and hopefully have some results...
But this kind of pieces is generally a bit problematic: lot of people ( even professionals) don't understand what it is exactly when they just see a photo without explanations. Always better to see the real object...

Well put Enzie.

I also have to say I may follow Cindy and break my brushes and join her in that corner.

The only think I can say, other than "Wow" is "I wish I had thought of it."

Keep posting. I LOVE IT!

Janel

I just spotted this one - Marina, you continue to amaze everyone with your technical skill and creative ideas. What a terrific painting! Enter this one in every contest you can find!

Thanks a lot, Janel and Linda, for your generous comments !

As Alex wrote: This is so good in every way that I really don't know what to say!

Thank you so much, Michele!