My third and final(?) copy of an Eric Carle painting is complete. I feel happier now I’ve looked up the definition of forgery and found that if I have no intent to deceive I’m not guilty of forgery 🙂
Still, copying or forging is not for the faint-hearted! I found it surprisingly difficult and must have been feeling very gung ho when I thought I could copy multi-media originals (tissue paper, watercolours, crayons & ?) with acrylics on canvas.
he was a beautiful butterfly!
What else surprised me is how much I learned. I had to really study Eric’s pictures in a copy of his book ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar‘ to try and work out what he’d done – which piece was under / over which – and why, what was it he’d worked to convey. Then I had to work out how to begin to duplicate his work.
Interestingly you never meet the caterpillar illustrated on the cover of the book within it. This is my version of his cover version of his medium weight caterpillar:
The Very Hungry Caterpillar
I love the sort of ‘stunned mullet’ look of both the caterpillar, that has devoured so much he is no longer hungry and is blown up like a balloon, and the butterfly!
The Not Hungry Caterpillar
When I finally finished the butterfly I was thinking “Never again! I want to do my own thing!” but the postman arrived with my copy of Juliette Aristides ‘Lessons In Classical Drawing’ and…
Hooroo,
🙂
Helen
This is wonderful fun! I grew up checking out books in the library books, holding them at arm’s length, and using colored pencils to draw my own copies. I taped them to my bedroom wall, and on the back of each picture, my mother had me write the title of the book we used and the artist’s name and title of the picture.
Thank you for your lovely comment Marilyn. What lovely encouragement from your mother :))
Helen
Wow, what an incredible challenge and fantastic result! There’s no danger of me forging another’s work, I can’t even duplicate my own! =) Great work, Helen… if we can learn something, then it’s worth every minute.
Thank you Scott :)) A friend has asked me to make her a small (20cm square) copy of one of my metre square paintings so I’ll have to face that challenge of duplicating my own work soon! 🙂 PS I’m sure you could duplicate your own work but then why would you?!
Ugh – My last comment could be misinterpreted. I meant that there is no need to duplicate your work Scott – your own paintings are great. I feel like my foot is in my mouth – is that the right analogy?.. perhaps I’d better leave it there…
no worries, I knew what you meant 🙂 good day to you, happy painting..
Never say never!!! Beautiful work. 🙂