THREE BALLERINAS BY LEADA WOOD, TEXAS ARTIST

THREE BALLERINAS BY LEADA WOOD©
DO NOT COPY!

I chose Edgar Degas for my inspiration to paint my little ballerinas for the Messin' With The Masters Show at the Heritage Museum.

 Ballet was Degas favorite subject and he is recognized for his paintings of dance. He was a prolific painter and more than half of his works depict dancers.

He was one of the founders of Impressionism but he preferred to be called an independent. He was a classical painter of modern life.

His bold brush strokes, vivid expressive color and portrayal of light and movement imparted a sense of movement and frozen moments in time.

 Degas always painted indoors unlike most other Impressionists. He experimented constantly with materials and methods whose novelty would match his vision of modern life.

 Degas would make a drawing and then take tracing paper and pencil and trace over the drawing and move the figures around. He used this method to try out different compositions and to form new ideas for other works of art. I use these methods in my art as well.

 The thing that drew me to Degas was the light and movement of his work. I tried to express this in my painting of "Dance To The Music".  Degas often painted with pastels. I decided to use a palette knife to try to emulate the texture that the pastels make.

 My favorite quote of Degas: “Art is NOT what you see, but what you make others see."

Thanks for dropping by!