Finished: Young Girl Reading by Jean Honore Fragonard

{final week: detail of the face at end of day}

Hello,

I have been a bit remiss in keeping you updated about the progress of my copy of a Young Girl Reading by Fragonard. Right before getting sick I had visited the gallery, finishing up the dress and scraping down the face again. So this is how the painting looked at the end of the day three visits ago...

{week 5: end of day status}

Then after being sick for what seemed like an eternity I was able to get back to the NGA last week Thursday for the sixth time to work on this painting. This is not my typical day, but because of feeling fatigued last week Monday I asked to postpone my painting day to later in the week. This gave me a few more days of rest and enabled me to get a lot done when I was back in the gallery. During the sixth week I totally reworked the face and head, neglecting all other aspects of the composition.

{week 6: end of day status}

This Monday I was back on my regular schedule and the goal was to refine different areas of the painting, and to soften the face some...

{final week: end of day status}

From this experience I gained the knowledge that copying a portrait is a lot more challenging than copying a still life because I found myself warring with my personal inclination of how to apply paint and striving to copy the soft strokes of Fragonard. I wanted both. Then ultimately my personality won and I ended up with a more chromatically charged painting than the original.

This also occurred when painting the copy of the Vase of Flowers.

Because I would like to be able to better emulate the artists I copy, I am going to start a new one immediately, and it is going to be another portrait. I will share details of this new project with you later.

Until then, good night and thanks for stopping by,

Liz