I read an article about a painting by Gustav Klimpt selling for a lot of money. He was an Austrian oil and watercolour painter who was active around the turn of the twentieth century, most famous for his use of gold leaf embellishments. His style was quite unusual, it was a mix of photo-realism with decorative abstractions. His most famous paintings were of figures of women embellished in gold leaf and bejeweled with plenty of colour highlights and textural effects. The subject matter is not for me personally, and the colour combinations seemed almost unreal. To better understand how it worked, I made an abstract painting to test some mixtures, then, working from memory I made the painting above. Getting the value contrasts on the yellow and caramel (gold) colours was difficult at first, and I was not able to fully replicate the sparkles in the background. The overall effect was not felt until the painting was about 90% complete. In the midst of painting the jewel embellishments in pale pastels, suddenly the golden highlights popped out. Like opening a pirate's treasure chest full of loot. I sort of wish I was more careful with the face portrait, but I like the noodly arms. Anyways, it was an interesting exercise to push my limits as a painter. And if anyone want to buy this painting I am charging 150,000,000 million monopoly dollars.
After Klimpt, watercolour 9 x 12" watercolour paper, June 2023 (No. 3637b)
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