Wednesday 9 May 2012

Fine Art Album–Van Eyck Part 2

I have now completed the pages featuring the Arnolfini Portrait of Jan Van Eyck. I applied some glossy accents to the detail picture of the mirror, and have added some journaling. I did this with my white Signo Uniball marker, which proved to be water soluble, so I sprayed on some fixative before completing the page with an acrylic glaze made up of yellow ochre with a touch of burnt umber, mixed to a thin consistency with some acrylic polymer. I applied this lightly over the journaling to age the stark white of the marker, wiping off the excess where it was visible on the background, with a paper towel.

I then painted a border in black, gold and white acrylic paint. Variations of this border will appear on all the pages to provide cohesion to the album, which will contain many varied and different artistic styles.

The final step was to adhere the portrait behind the gold frame.

Here are the pictures of the finished double-page spread and the details. In this first picture, I have folded back the 1-inch strip allowed for the binding, to show how the pages will look when the book is completed.

The left-hand page with its binding strip and journaling.

Detail of the portrait in its gold frame.

The journaling, giving some history of the painting, and some details about the skill of the artist.

Van Eyck’s signature. This picture also gives some detail of the black and gold border.

The mirror detail, complete with spiral journaling, detailing the mysterious qualities of the mirror in the painting. The Glossy Accents applied to the glass in the image give it a shiny, convex quality.

The picture is heavy with symbolism – the dog, the fruit, the lamp, the carving on the bed and the colour of the bed hangings, the Christian imagery on the mirror, to mention but a few, all symbolise different aspects of the marriage of this wealthy merchant and his wife. I have journaled a few of these.

There was much more that could have been said, and illustrated, about this intriguing work of art, but I think this gives a taste, and emphasises those aspects which I personally find most fascinating.

11 comments:

  1. had a good snoop around have a great day

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  2. Fascinating - another book maybe?!

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  3. Great journal page, I have always enjoyed this painting too.

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  4. WOW Shoshi wonderful pages for your book. Thanks for stopping by my desk. BJ#41

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  5. Hi Shoshi!
    Thank you for visiting my other blog too! I am sorry to hear about your problem. It is rough all over I guess. But what you said about creativity flourishing in a way you never expected is so true. How could we know all that we had inside!!!
    I'm talking in code a bit in this blog comment! I hope you get what I'm talking about!!
    I'm so glad you stopped by!!!
    xxDaniella
    OH! I almost forgot your beautiful piece above! Amazing!!! I love the frames and the outlines! The paper looks like you treated it in a way that it looks like leather! I love it!!!

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  6. WOW, WOW, WOW! fantastic journal page.. Have a great week ahead. Hugs May x x x#31

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  7. It is such an enigmatic painting: I love your very personal presentation of your analysis. The metamorphosis of one work of art, into another.

    Anna

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  8. Absolutely wonderful page and I love how you have created the turned out section to frame the pic. Interesting information about the artist.
    Sandra @22

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  9. I love, love love this painting and it is one of my favourites too because of the imagery you describe so well. I saw it some years ago in the National Portraits Gallery and I bought a postcard. Superb pages.
    Thanks for stopping by.

    Carol

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  10. This is coming along nicely it will be beautiful when its all finished,some times its nice to do a project that takes a long time, very relaxing

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  11. I want to send you a picture but I cant find your email anywhere on this blog, can you email me bridget.larsen@gmail.com please

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