The Wine Muse – Karen Barry Art & Design

I’ve been wanting to do some projects about wine and this beautiful and bountiful area I live in. While riding my bike around Napa Valley and Livermore Valley, I think about how lucky I am to live here. After doing my Viva Frida woodcut in the Art Nouveau style, I wanted to do something similar, with wine as the subject. My inspiration was Alphonse Mucha, the late 19th century poster artist. I found a willing model (my granddaughter) and photographed her in similar poses as Mucha’s poster models.

With my first sketch, I was satisfied that I got a decent likeness to the model, but overall, I realized that she was thinner and younger looking than in real life. I revised my sketch to make her look more like the photograph. The result was a stronger-looking young woman.

I sketched a lot of leaves for the layout, scanning everything so I could make printouts of different sizes of elements to then redraw the final sketch. It’s easier for me to work that way.

A final print of the linocut. Size is 14″ by 23″. That’s about the largest print I can make on my Ettan etching press. I’m thinking about playing around with adding color somehow. If I come up with anything that looks decent, I’ll add it to the post.

I tested a lot of colors on reject prints to come up with this color palette. I used a combination of Aquarelle’s Caran D’Ache water soluble crayons and watercolor pencils.

Comments

I purchased your ‘Wine Muse’ from the Alameda County Fair. We were wandering the art displays looking for the photographs my husband had submitted. I found her and was immediately drawn and then moved on. We got to the end and I couldn’t get her out of my mind. She now has a place of honor in our home here in Downtown Livermore. Thank you for creating such a spiritual feeling with your Muse – I can feel that when I am enjoying my wine!

Thank you, Eileen for purchasing my Wine Muse, and your thoughtful comments! I’m sorry, I just noticed your message here; I haven’t been paying close enough attention to my website. I love art nouveau, especially all the organic lines and shapes. Also, my granddaughter was the model for the piece. She was thrilled to see it in the show, and excited that someone bought it. I’ll be at ArtWalk this October 12th. I’ll be at the corner of S. Livermore and First. If you’re there, stop by and say hi!

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