Not too long after I started painting and drawing, I began to catalogue my works. Over the years the numbers have grown. Tuesday, the 23rd of May, I finished by 10,000th art work. That is a milestone for me.
I work in batches, many works at a sitting, then catalogue them later. I knew I was near that big number, and I was curious which work it would be.
It turned out to be a small copy of an old drawing, that I had found, fixed up with pencil, and trimmed to get a new composition. That work was called “Worried Woman”. Far from being a celebratory piece!
So instead I’m going to go back up a little and talk about the earlier work, #9,998. This is a larger piece and one that I spent some time on. It is called Girl in the Yellow Dress ( or Woman in the Yellow Dress) , and it has quite a pedigree!
The work was first a drawing copy of mine of a painting by a late 19th century American painter. I have forgotten who the artist was, but it is in my notes somewhere.
I loved what he had done, and made a somewhat realistic version of it. Then I made copies of that, and colored them with colored pencils. Then I made copies of the colored version with some in color and some in b/w (black and white). I took one of the b/w copies and added black pencil to bring out the contrast and make the blacks richer.
Finally, it was done. Here it is. Woman in the Yellow Dress. Though not the exact 10,000th work, close enough.
