Sunday, July 20, 2008

"Tiffany Stained Glass Peacock"


I have always loved to look at stained glass; it's translucense and "rich" look and feel are so appealing to me. Many of the old Victorian style houses I've visited (and I have visited many) have stained glass built into them somewhere.....
Soft pastels (my new favorite medium) are wonderful because they feel bright and "creamy" when I pull them across fine-grit sandpaper. The combination is irresistible to me. While gazing at this image (from a miniature calendar one of my customers gave to me for a job well done) trying to get inspired, it occurred to me that pastels might be a wonderful medium for depicting the colorful, marbelized look of stained glass. I thought - try it!

There are things about the composition that made depicting it an absolute challenge for me. i.e. lots of detail, the attempt at translucence, and the peacock. (I usually do a poor job of drawing/painting birds or creatures of any kind....)

Looking at it now the many colors of the finished project lean it toward "gaudy", but there are areas of it that I like! For example, the colors on the peacock's neck , the peacock itself, and the sailboats worked out nicely. However, as a whole...I think the composition is too busy......
Oh, well. Back to the drawing board !

What do you think? I'd live to hear your comments....good and bad...Thank you !

12 comments:

Stephanie said...

oh my goodness! I'd be over the moon if I did something this lovely as my "first attempt". Wow! you got transluscent, you got marbled, it says Tiffany window all the way. Not gaudy at all.

Deb said...

This is GORGEOUS!!!! It truly looks like a piece of stained glass!

MaryO said...

Oh my, your inner critic is working overtime. This is lovely, and beautifully colorful as stained glass pieces would traditionally be. You've done very well!

Anonymous said...

Hi Tracey,

Your work is lovely!

Mia

Anonymous said...

Nice work and a Frank sound track too! What fun.

kazumiwannabe said...

Beautiful! Love how the light seem to go through it. Love the subject, this fantasy scenery, too.
How old is this piece?

Sarah M said...

Wow! I think it would be very difficult to portray translucent stained glass with pastel, and you've done a really good job! I suppose if there were anything I might change, it might be to remove or reduce the bits of foliage at the top left and/or bottom left corners, or possibly to use some more blue/green in those bits to balance the peacock, but what do I know? Doing that might just ruin the picture! I love it just as it is. Love the sailboat too.

Spinneretta said...

Tell the inner critic to hush!! This is lovely :) I am a new convert to soft pastels too, and although I have never tried something like this, I'd be exstatic to get those results ;)

Amy's Place said...

Beautiful.......
Gaudy? No way. It's so much different then the other types of paintings and pastels I see you create. The detail, colors and whole composition is perfectly elegant.

BRAVO !!!!

andddd....Love yew

Ame -xoxoxoxoxo

PNH said...

Great job, leave it alone.

Lynn said...

It's not gaudy at all! It's luminescent and beautiful.

joanieART said...

This leaves me speechless, that freaking great!