In the Style of … Toulouse Lautrec
Toulouse Lautrec’s style is pretty unique, and of course a lot of his work was intended to be converted in to huge advertising posters for the night life of Paris
Here are the first couple of quick charcoal 5 minute sketches that I did in the ‘live’ session –
Even from these rough images you can see the first difficulty. Our model was beautiful, enthusiastic and really entered into the spirit of the poses and provided her lovely costumes. Howeverm even from a quick trawl through the work of Toulouse Lautrec it’s plain that his prostitutes who look depressed and tubercular, or his Gaity Girls who are either half starved or on heroin means that we are going to have to adapt somewhat. (None of the athletic robustness of Degas’s ballerinas.)
Second difficulty, Apparently he had a preference for painting in thin oil paint on cardboard. I did a drawing of one of the longer poses, so that I could have a try at this later. I don’t have any oil paints, so it will have to be acrylics. Also I think diluting the paint with water would mean it would just leach into the cardboard, so have rooted out some glazing medium and will use that. Let’s see what happens.
The medium is a bit gloopy and tends to cause the paint to slither across the smooth surface of the cardboard – doesn’t look hopeful.
Well this is my first total failure. I won’t even bother posting it. In the beginning I said I would post, mistakes and all, but this is just a mess. I will happily concede that Toulouse Lautrec was infinitely cleverer than me!
I don’t think I will repeat this experiment, though if I can I will do a pastel picture from one of my sketches. In the meantime the cardboard can definitely go for recycling.