Fancy Lady

[Peggy Baumgaertner]

Well, I will see if I can explain a little about how I put this portrait together.

Compositionally, you need an entrance point into a painting. In this painting, it is the shiny gold plates and clock on the top of the mantelpiece in the upper left corner of the painting. This leads you to Lin's head. There you can linger a bit, see the jewelry, her right arm cocked over the back of the chair, her hand playing with the fur, the you begin the visual journey down the extended arm.

At one point, I had the option of bringing her left arm across her body, and have her also caressing the fur with her left hand. But that would have created a closed loop enclosing the upper half of her body. You wouldn't see the rest of the painting. The arm extending down her leg directs your eye down, and Lin is actually pointing at were I want you to look next, the dog. The dog is a stopper. If the dog had not been there, your eye would have moved down and out of the painting. The dog catches your eye and stops that movement.

I made a white cutout the size of the dog, and moved it around the bottom of the portrait until it was placed correctly. If the dog was too low and too far to the left, your eye would also have been drawn down and out of the painting. After being stopped by the dog, your eye moves up the shiny reflections on the floor and enters the hunt scene. From there you move back at Lin's face, and are caught in the visual loop. No place to leave the painting. I also hope that once you are in the painting, that you will have interesting things to engage you, the fireplace in the background with gargoyle guards, the two paintings on the back wall, the jewels on her shoes, the embroidery on the chair, etc.

Before I started to take photographs, I observed Lin, watched her movements. I already had an idea for the pose, and when I saw her sitting in the chair, I had her stretch out and point her foot, to achieve that wonderful long line. I took close-ups of her hands, and had her shake out her hands and relax them into those beautiful, fluid, languid gestures. The attitude is all her, I just recorded it. The lighting was achieved by opening up the front door and placing the chair in front of it. That gave us that strong flood of light across the painting. (..The biggest problem was keeping the dog from running out the front door....)

Basically, the entire composition was created before and during the photo session.

Some changes made during the completion of the painting: the fireplace was originally on the back wall where the hunt scene is, but I wanted her to have a long gaze, and the fireplace was a distraction, so I moved the fireplace behind her. I wanted something on the back wall and settled for either a painting or a tapestry, both of which they have in their home. Lin rides the hounds, so it was a no brainier to have the tapestry or the painting be of a Victorian hunt scene, I won't go into the discussion of the conception of that painting, but it is my original.

The final piece was the chair. Lin's chair was white and gold, and I could not make it work. The introduction of a light area in the bottom portion of the portrait threw off the composition. So I substituted one of the darker prop chairs from my studio.

Mari got it very close, she just "viewed" the painting in the reverse direction, but you end up in the same place.

I hope this hasn't gone on too long. There have been much discussion of this forum about the planning that goes into the composition, and I wanted to walk you through the process I use in working out a painting. I think I told Gina that I might spend three or four days in the studio moving elements around on the canvas before I start the painting. (I do not do a thumbnail or smaller study piece before I start a painting. I can only see what I will end up with if I am working out the bugs full size.)

Peggy