My Own Pieces of Renoir

My inclination to the arts started with doodles when I was a child.  When I was in grade school, one of my hobbies was making comic strips.  I’d create story plots and expressed them with drawings. Most of my drawings are people and places.  I used ballpoint pen and newsprint to make the ‘comics’.  My classmates, especially the boys, would rent my comics for a few cents during recess.  And they would look forward for the continuation of my comic series. Funny, I earned from the rental fees that my classmates paid me.  I was an accidental entrepreneur at a tender age! 

In later years, I kind of stopped writing fiction but my artistic left hand continued with its strokes.  First, I was into charcoal painting.  But then I craved for color in my works.  So I started using watercolors and pastels.  I later developed my comfort with soft pastels.  I found it easier to blend and the strength of color is not overwhelming.   Most of my subjects are people-- in their candid moments. My feminine and child subjects are a way of self-expression-- a depiction of my thoughts, feelings, moods and sentiments.  I usually elaborate the details of the facial expression and sentiment of my subject person.   And I surround them with nature—flowers, trees, sky, grass.  My affinity to nature also inspired me to try painting landscapes.

I have completed a few works when I stumbled upon certain paintings from Webshots, a Wallpaper website.  I noticed some similarities of said paintings with my works.    Like my own works, said paintings featured people—especially children, girls, women, and landscapes too. 

Young Girl in Blue Hat

Poor Little Rich Girl

The Umbrellas

Two Sisters in the Terrace

By the Seashore

Girl with Watering Can

Two Girls at the Piano

One coincidence, I made a charcoal painting as gift to my bestfriend who has a twin sister.  They both love playing the piano.  So I made a painting of two sisters, one is seated and playing the piano keys while the other one is standing beside, as if looking at the musical sheet.  I titled my painting, Twins at the Piano.  Then, I stumbled upon a similar painting entitled, Two Girls at the Piano.  The scene is very much the same with my own painting. 
 
I'm not sure if my bestfriend was able to keep the painting I gave her.  I don't have a copy of it, but I still remember the details.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir

I later discovered, that the painter of the works I liked in Webshots and that of the Two Girls at the Piano, is Pierre-Auguste Renoir, a French impressionist painter of the 1800’s.  His works are known for vibrant colors.  His style--instead of mixing colors, he used several brush strokes with different colors, and the eye of the viewer "mixes" the color. 


Renoir thought that "a painting should be a joyful thing, pretty and pleasant".  He lived that philosophy in his works.

It’s inspiring that my own works have semblance to the masterpieces of the great Renoir, at least to my eyes. :)  Though I never made reference to nor imitated his style, our works coincidentally both have bright colors and conveyed the same impressions and subjects.  Maybe some unknown cosmic force serendipitously blew the inspiration of Renoir to this side of Asia, and centuries later, breathed it to an ordinary girl with ordinary artistic talent, but with great appreciation of the arts.   Renoir died December 3, I was born December 2.  It was just a matter of time zone, that connected through centuries.  ;)))  Nuts?...It's a simple wishful thinking!....:)))

Girl Picking Flowers (My work)

Renoir's Femme-Cueillant-Des-Fleurs (Girl Gathering Flowers)

Young Girl by the Fence (My work)

Young Girl with a Parasol (by Renoir)

 

Banks of the Seine (by Renoir)

 

Little House on the Meadow (My work)

I don’t get to paint nowadays because of my corporate work.  But the creativity lives inside me and is quenched by looking at great masterpieces, like the beautiful works of the great Renoir.  

Renoir's The Ball at Moulin de la Galette, sold for more than USD70 Million in 1990