"Water Nymphs" after Edward Henry Potthast

"Water Nymphs"after Edward Henry Potthast
(4x4") - 201121
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I knew I'd eventually get around to study at least one of Potthast's scenes of youngster's in their birthday suits. And now that I have, I intend to do more of them. Of note - I did some research on signing paintings. Mostly looking for a solution on how to sign a thick & juicy palette knife piece. Didn't get an answer to that, but did read some interesting stuff about "the artist's signature" - which leads me to making a decision about signing these studies. The paintings are clearly copies (hate how that sounds - but let's face it....) of another artist's work. In every way except for one. If you look closely at separate areas in Will's work (let's take a body part for example), you see numerous brush strokes of color that are varying degrees of temperature from cool to warm, but in the same value range. In mine, I have mostly chosen only two temperatures of the same color, and applied them very directly. The small size, of course, wouldn't allow for more than two strokes, unless I was using a teeny tiny brush (yick). Just the same, these scenes wholly belong to Mr. Potthast and I will not be adding my Joan Hancock to them on the front. I will, however, make sure to sign the backs with my name as well as: 'after WHP'.
I also want to to address composition here. I am well aware that at dead center of the painting are joined hands of the girl on the left, and the girl in the back. And a bit lower than this are joined hands of the girl on the left and the girl on the right. What's more, there's a fair amount of emptiness around this area because of the lack of any detail in the water. This is an example of not nailing down a mix of color whose value relates very well to those surrounding it. I decided to leave it as it was because changing it carried a very high risk of ruining things altogether. I feel the painting has enough other virtue that the trade off was worth it.

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