Studies for Playtime
New on the computer next to the studio.
I have a couple of 24 x 24 canvases that I want to use because I have them. Squares are hard to compose, which is why they’ve been sitting around for a bit. I had an idea to do a Balthus homage, and this was the drawing. Nude? Check. Cat? Check. Interior scene? Check.
I’m weirdly fascinated with Scalable Vector Graphics, and my current work lends itself to SVG interpretation. I’ve been meaning to make SVG studies a regular part of my image development, and used this drawing as the opportunity. I dropped the scan of the drawing into the bottom layer of an Inkscape document and built wireframes for the shapes. My attempt to draw a square was embarrassing, so I enlarged the window and moved the stool rightwards. (Click and control-drag at a 45-degree angle to the top of the screen with the Rectangle tool will constrain the result to a square.)
I then created white fills, checked the stacking order, and made a clipping path.
I then made a reverse image. This is easy to do (Object → Flip Horizontal) and handy for if I want to make the image into a print. Also, I can check to see if the composition improves. Ideally, it shouldn’t, but if it does, one should lay aside one’s ego and accept it. I think this is worse:
Inkscape doesn’t have workspaces like Krita, which is too bad. But you can drop a source image into its own layer and use the color picker on it.
Version up, replace the image, color-pick anew. Since every shape has a stroke and a fill color, it’s trivially easy to try new combinations.
At this point I figured out that the cat needed reshaping and I didn’t like that intersection between his back and the bed.
I like doing this because I can quickly iterate through decisions about color and contrast, and try colors that I wouldn’t think to combine otherwise.
It’s important, now and then, to throw a curveball at yourself.
This is not a democracy, but if you have a favorite, let me know in the comments.
Dissident Muse Journal is the blog of Dissident Muse, a publishing and exhibition project by Franklin Einspruch. Content at DMJ is free, but paid subscribers keep it coming. Please consider becoming one yourself, and thank you for reading.
Our next title in the Asynchronous Studio Book Club is Confessions of an Old Jewish Painter by R.B. Kitaj. For more information, see the ASBC homepage.
The current exhibition in the Dissident Museum is David Curcio: The Point of the Needle.
Courtesans or young women with a cat are fairly common in ukiyo-e, as Balthus no doubt knew.
💙💙💙💙
Does it count as a double-nude if the cat is not wearing clothes?