Viva Mucha!

I’ve had a series of muses.  In college, it was Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso.  I loved their curved and sensuous lines. A few strokes and Picasso created a simple human face,  Or a few organic shapes and Matisse captured a person’s essence.  They taught me that less is more.

Then it was Caravaggio.  He used dramatic lighting in his oil paintings.

Now my muse is Alphonse Mucha.  His graphic work graced many a poster, and he is credited with starting the Art Nouveau movement.  He renders the female figure beautifully and uses a dark, graphic outline on all of his shapes.  His backgrounds are lavishly decorated with plants and motifs.  And his figures are representations of seasons or emotions. 

This sketch is my homage to Mucha, especially the flowers.  I used Sharpies and pen to create it.  The sketch is lovely.  I made one critical error with that smudge on the left eyebrow.  I didn’t wait for the ink to dry and voila! Smudgeville.  My only beef with markers is avoiding that place where strokes overlap and make the colors appear darker.  It’s very similar to using watercolor.

Using markers, with the exception of Prismacolor, and gasp! crayons, is viewed as amateurish by some.  But it is a prime media for graphic content.

(reposted from previous blog)