28^th July 2022 Dr Beena

Hello everyone, I hope everyone is safe wherever you are😊. Now I must share my excruciating challenge with Mona Lisa. It is the most recognised portrait in the world. To be tasked with this painting was painstakingly anxiety for me😒. So, I began my journey with acrylic paint. Even after a gruelling eight hours of work, my Lisa looked so fierce😂 that I had to practice at home.

So I did a rough sketch on regular paper and decided to use colour pencils. I worked on it for days and finally got this version. 😍. I was so excited, but I could not make Lisa look older even though I tried. The teacher said I needed to make the skin less tight or sag the facial expression. Now I am clueless🤦‍♀️. Any idea how I can do that? Let me know in the comment section.

Then it occurred to me that Mona Lisa is an intriguing character. It is hard to explain her smile. Leonardo Da Vinci commissioned this work by Francesco del Giocondo (Mona’s husband). He wanted the painting to show a happy person. However, Leonardo never gave this work to hum. Instead, he bequeathed this famous painting to his assistant Salai😒.

I wish to highlight certain original work features as I didn’t capture them. One is the lack of defined lines around the eyes and mouth (sfumato) and the soft blending of the corners of the mouth and eyes. That makes Lisa look alive. The theory about the lack of eyebrows and eyelashes may be due to repeated cleaning, and they fade with time. I didn’t put the landscape in the background as I was using colour pencils to create Lisa. In the original work, Leonardo created that artificial landscape for the first time with the horizon line at her eye level. That is very interesting😊👌. You can read more about his work online as I try to keep my writing brief as requested by my regular readers😉.

Hence, we sometimes get disappointed by getting something less than we imagined. I know that my art has to improve, but I wanted to write this story and decided to post my draft work. When I get better, I will replace it just as how the original piece has been cleaned and worked on in layers. That also explains why Leonardo did it in oil rather than other mediums😎. Smart move. But I am still curious why he never gave this work to Lisa’s husband🤷‍♀️😢. Now the work resides at the Louvre and recently had pastry thrown at it😒😢😢 by a disabled man.

On that note, I wish everyone happy reading, and please leave your comments. I love reading them❤️❤️❤️.