Speaking of composition practice …

I’ve been studying the paintings by Henri Matisse (and exploring his paper cuts, too, but I’ll save the paper cuts topic for a future post) to continue exploring examples of good composition.

In the process, one of Matisse’s paintings in particular called my attention:

‘The Lute” (1943) 👇🏽

The Lute (1943) by Henri Matisse – Artchive

Many of Matisse’s paintings, in fact, call my attention but there was just something about The Lute which made me wonder if I could paint an inspired version with a modern twist to the theme.

That’s how I ended up with this underpainting 👇🏽

While my Lute-inspired version borrows compositional ideas from Matisse, my subject features a casually-clad woman holding a maraca in one hand and a tambourine in the other.

And although not yet rendered, the scenery I’ll depict will be that of the Caribbean tropics instead of Matisses’s more formal living room.

I really like the visual feeling of where this underpainting is heading.

The more I look at my underpainting, the more I want to keep working on it!

… but alas, continuing this painting may very well be a couple of months or so out because I’m currently juggling several projects requiring my immediate and full attention.

But I promise that when I finally do circle back to this, I’ll document my process and my progress to share it here with you.

Yours in art and creative expression,