Cigarette (a la Alphonse Mucha)

The second "victim" had to be Alphonse Mucha as a most vicous Art Nouveau painter. XX century, first railroads, factories, the century of discovery, new architecture, new art, new art life - it is all Art Nouveau for me. It remains unknown owhere in our smoke-free apartment Alexandra found an inspiration for the painting, but watching it makes me want to have a nice long menthol cigarette in my hand and may be a glass of absinthe in the other one and jump to the next train to Paris - paper, watercolor, nice music, enjoy:

Cigarette, Alexandra, 2010

The second "victim" had to be Alphonse Mucha as a most vicous Art Nouveau painter. According to wikipedia he is most famous for his women portraits, you all probably can regonize his famous four seasons series or nestle advertisement (girls need to eat):

Cigarette

1. Concept

The challenge was to capture the feel of the era, of the painter. His main object were girls with beautiful long hair and dresses, that curl in the wind - which did not make the creating of a rabbit any easier. Well, he could have kind of hair. But in the absence of the dresses we'll need to improvise something different. Just in the sense of the beginning of the 20th century.

2. Sketch
Not easy to make a good sketch, art nouveau and Mucha are tricky and curvy, hundred of details and little elements should come together to forge the painting, all of which should first be sketched and tried out:

3. Execution
Art Nouveau artist used very often two different approaches together to draw a picture: ink with water-color. Needless to say how dangerous it could be sometimes to mix them, but Alexandra did a great job. Cigarette has a great atmosphere and freshness of the best art nouveau paintings.

So far it is my favorite painting in the series (stays so till now).

I could not even imagine how to difficult it is to create a transparency using water-color, just close Photoshop and try it youself.

Our personal spring wind, taking aways the smoke:

Please welcome - a mysterious stranger, the white rabbit:

Cigarette