Each semester we go on a trip to New York with the Maywood Art department, and this semester we went to the Met Breuer. On view was the “Unfinished: Thoughts Left Visible” which addressed the question of when a work of art was finished.

I was blown away at all of the pieces that were shown there dating back from the Renaissance to the present. It was amazing to see great works from the Master painters that were left unfinished. It was a little insight into there process and application.

Matisse is one of my favorite artists because of his genius colors and compositions. There was an unfinished piece of his that was really great to see in the show. 

Unfortunately for some reason I didn’t get the whole piece in the picture. Probably because I wanted to be as close to it as I could so I could see the strokes in the painting.

Anyway, the next week after I was looking through all of the pictures I had something just struck me about this one. I really wanted to explore this painting more. So as I was looking for something to paint in my printmaking class I got the  idea to make a print from this painting. First I cropped the painting to get a smaller composition from this picture. Then I began working on a smaller piece of plexiglass.

Next I tried replicating most of the colors I was seeing in the painting and then started laying them in as Matisse had done. Now I surely am no Matisse so my colors unfortunately were sightly off but it was really interesting to study this painting. Also it is backwards because it is a print and I didn’t want to attempt to paint it backwards on the plate so it would transfer the correct way.

Oil based. 4×5 Monoprint.

I was happy with my results because sometimes my printmaking skills are not always up to par, but this one I really took my time with to ensure the print would at least transfer properly.

Sketchbook Drawing of the Week: