Master Copy - Sargent's "Honorable Mrs. Gilbert Legh"

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Approx 24x18", 10/1-3/2015, charcoal on paper

I think this one is finished now... Gosh, I love Sargent. I really love staring at his artwork, studying the strokes, colors, etc. But trying to reproduce it in some form brings the study of his style to a whole new level. I can see why aspiring art students copy master works--such a wealth of information. 

I don't know much about charcoal, so this is all very experimental. I definitely didn't capture the particular quality of all the lines (especially in the background--I was using vine charcoal on its side, whereas he appears to have used the end of a larger piece of charcoal). 

However, I was a lot more careful about accuracy with this one (as opposed to my first couple charcoal copies). I started out with a very light under drawing in pencil to map out the proportions (it erases so much better than charcoal!), which really helped when I started laying on the charcoal, even though I still needed to make some corrections as I went along.

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