Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Royal Wave


This was painted for the Calypso Moon Artist monthly challenge. This month Alice has us painting (& revisiting) the Royal wedding of William & Kate. By viewing the various video's on the YouTube Royal Wedding Channel, we were free to choose the scenes & views that struck us most during the wedding.

And what a wedding, the Brits do know how to set a stage! I watched part of the wedding live, but watched it again later in the day. And then watched it again via the Royal Wedding Channel. (I just went to the website and I've noticed that the wedding is not front & center any longer, and that they've been busy uploading different videos to the web. )

One of the items about the wedding that everyone talked about was Kate's dress. It was elegant, simple & yet, not so simple. The beading & detailing was exquisite - I knew I wanted to paint something with the dress. But I also knew I couldn't do the detailing justice.

In watching the video (and also when it was live), I loved Kate's arrival. She was so happy as she waved to the thousands who watched her. And the dress had such a long train - and there, at the end of the train, stood Pippa, Kate's sister & maid of honor. Her simple & elegant dress was also stunning.

So my choice was this frame capture of Kate's arrival, her wave, her train, and her dutiful sister keeping that train in perfect condition. I originally had the background painted with the various people - but it was too busy & stole attention away from the subjects. So I painted over them, opting for a more undefined background - hoping it would sort of melt into the background for the viewer.

You will also notice that none of the people have facial features. They were painted in, multiple times, but none of my attempts seemed to work well. In the end, I chose to leave out the features & just go with the shapes.

I spent more time on this than I originally thought I would, and probably could still tweak this further. But I'm satisfied enough to let it go for now. I'll leave it on the easel for a few days & see what calls out to me to be changed.

Acrylic on 8x11 canvas

8 comments:

martinealison said...

Très jolie peinture pour immortaliser une telle union... Bisous

yasha said...

Thats a lovely moment captured in paint Nancie!Even without the facial features I can almost see their expression :)Just Lovely.

Autumn Leaves said...

Absolutely gorgeous work, Nancie. You did a beautiful job with the folds of her dress too! A special day indeed!

Autumn Leaves said...

I think this is just delightful, Nancie. I get such a kick out of the reverence for the royals that the world shows. That we all shared the joy of this day was magnificent!

Jean Nelson Paintings and Photography said...

Nice work, Nan. I especially like the guard standing next to the sister (unmarried I assume). You did a good job with this challenge.

Carol DeMumbrum said...

Great job with this Nan! I love how you kept to the values shapes and focused on the composition and not the details.

Paula said...

Wonderful! The dress was beautiful, the Maid of Honor, dare I say, more beautiful than the bride, and the groom all fancy in his red coat! Nice work! (Didn't you just love the exchanging of the vows? The held back tears, the looks of longing and togetherness, the OMG-if-this-archbishop-doesn't-hurry-up-I'm-going-to-fall-asleep-in-front-of-2-billion-people looks on their faces?!)

SYLVIANE said...

Bravo,Nancie, you are brave to have painted such a ceremony, it's lovely!
I didn't loose a moment live of the wedding, on TV,although it was not my intention;but I was crooked and it was a beautiful great and long moment!

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