Ode to Mucha

[petey]

Hi everyone, thanks for checking out my pic. I'm an admirer of Art Nouveau so i this is a pic i did to show my appreciation to that style and in particular Alphonse Mucha. Enjoy. Graphite and photoshop,

Pete

(c)

[kev ferrara]

This is quite quite beautiful and intricate and the workmanship is beautiful (did you use illustrator for any of this? Or is it all hand drawn? And if you did use illustrator, how in heck did you accomplish these beautiful forms?). Nice job! Lotta mucha fans on this site too so I'm sure I'm not the only one appreciating what you've done here. I particularly appreciate the sea horseys and the spirals scrollwork coming off them. Really sweet.

Oh, one crit thing... did you do the figure in the center separate from the frame? Because the flat vertical borders of red that frame the figure don't seem to match up visually with the interior borders of the outer frame. flat against the curvilinear makes it seem like a mismatch, rather than a deliberate choice for the sake of contrast. Did you struggle with that part of the design?

Again, nice,
kev

[petey]

Hey Kev,

Thanks for your reply. It was all hand drawn and there were definate moments where i struggled doing this piece. The linework did tighten me up because I had to be so precise so i probably lost a bit of looseness and spontaneity in the process which may account for not a perfect composition. The figure in center was done separately. The border I obviously did half and mirrored.

Thanks again again cheers for the critique,

Pete

p.s// I love your work!

[Vinnieart]

Fantastic work! And wonderful tribute to one of the masters!

[bluefooted]

It's very nice, but I wish the figure in the center was much larger - I'd like to be able to appreciate her more and it would give the piece more impact. There's way too much dead space around her as well.

[daveneale]

I agree with the above comments, and also love this, the hair especially is very reminicient of his awsome work. Oh and well done on spelling Nouveau correctly, I've spelt it hundreds of times, and can NEVER remember the correct way, it's my arch nemesis of words!

[Olof]

Agree about the deadspace, looks abit weird with the gradient (?) in the background, but that might just be me.

Really a nice work! I like it alot, but why so small resolution? :)

.peace

[NathanLong]

Beautifully done. I agree about the dead space and the smallness of the figure. One thing that Mucha did a lot was use the figure to break the lines of a design - a girl sitting in a circle with her legs or arms pushing out of it so that it breaks up the rigidity of the structure a little.

Like so...

[mrgrumble]

great piece! i would certainly say that the designs capture the nouveau essence, while the figure (And yes i agree with nathan's point should be larger) i feel isn't quite the representation of mucha and his contemporaries for some reason - which is perfectly fine! :) your own addition to the style perhaps. but something else about the figure bothers me - the arms overlaying. it looks like the hand and forearm should belong to the left rear arm which somehow akwardly vanishes, and makes the pose seem unfomfortable - something very un nouveau! :)
those designs are flawless though! quite beautiful and intricate without being overcrowded! :)
-ps are you familiar with Mucha' slav epic? it seems sometimes like it is his oft. overlooked masterworks, and i've only rarely seen all twenty images compiled!

[light]

Gorgeous, do you have a higher resolution version perchance?

[Chris Bennett]

Lovey piece, for all the reasons given above.
I have a thought about what everybody is calling the 'dead space' thing: To me its really to do with it looking transparent and not a piece of 'surface' design making the formal elements look like a sort of lace hanging in front of a blue/green void. It is a good thing to have peaceful areas countering the busy, so it is not to be thought of as 'dead' really. More that it does not 'lock' with the design across the 2D surface causing the shape of this area to have a feeble influence due to it appearing to be on a distant, transparent plane and nothing to do with the forms it seems to sit so far behind.
A beautiful piece none the less.

[petey]

Hi everyone,

Thanks so much for your constructive critiques, I really appreciate it. I agree with you all. If i were to do it again now I'd have her much more prominent in frame and also have her overlapping and being more a part of the surrounding whips and flourishes. Thanks again guys. I'm going to check out your links now.... :)

Pete