This week I’ve been stealing pictures from a Piero della Francesca book that I found in a charity shop. I bought it thinking it would be useful to have around and pinch ideas from, and this week I found myself at a loose end and decided to draw something based on this image:
I love the flattened perspective and clustered people, all the little glimpsed faces and the combination of bold shapes and lines with delicate details. And the very funny horse face on the far left.
Here are my versions, painted in watercolour with a bit of coloured pencil here and there. They’ve got a bit less piety and a few more dogs than Piero’s version…
Along with Piero della Francesca, I have to credit my dog Peanut for inspiring these paintings, she’s a dog of many faces… and only some of them pretty.
Hopefully more of these will follow soon, there’s plenty more Piero to steal from.
Take a look at the archive for previous posts on appliqués, collages and more…
It's so much fun to see your process ! My go to Quattrocento inspiration is Paolo Uccello. Such an endlessly inspiring visual period.
I love these, especially the second one. It’s amazing to see how an old religious painting could serve as inspiration for such amazing art. Makes me think of the way creative inspiration works. Fascinating stuff.