I chose to recreate this artwork because I was drawn to the contrast of the colourful sky, and the dark rocky formation. When I was looking at paintings to recreate, I was intrigued by the painting, because it looked like someplace I visited before, and so I clicked on the painting and learned about it more. It turned out to be Bon Echo, which is where I went to go camping a few summers ago. It was a memorable place and I had good memories there, so I also wanted to recreate it because I had a personal connection to the place.

While recreating this image, using the gridding technique I was able to simplify the recreation process and I was able to make it more rationally accurate. It was quite a time consuming process because when sketching, I had to add all the little details, because I wanted to make it as accurate as possible. When painting, it was a tedious process as the paint wasn’t a solid colour, it had different shades to add more texture and realism. A difficulty I had was painting the rock formation because there were so many different colours and values, and it was hard to recreate them. Though as I kept painting, I found a groove and kept painting while listening to music. I got a lot done during those times and it was a relaxing experience.

I chose the colours because the original artist, Arthur Lismer used these colours. Though, one of the reasons I chose this artwork was because of the colours.

Bon Echo by Arthur Lismer uses line, colour, form, texture and value in the painting. The painting has hard edges within the rock formation. In contrast, the sky uses soft edges for a more airy effect. He uses implied lines meaning there are no actual lines. Lismer uses colour by using lighter colours for the sky, which attracts attention due to it’s bright and almost abstract like clouds. He then uses the same colour but with less intensity for the water. The rock formation is made of opaque and dull colours. There are also less intense areas for highlights, such as the yellow strip above the rock formation, the water, and in the rock formation. Form is created with the shadows and the different values of the colours. The rock formation is like a rectangle with a slightly pointed top. The uneven and jagged look makes it look like a rock and it gives it a complexity. This leads me on to texture, the layers of the paint gives it a rough texture, as you can see the little fibres of the paintbrush—just like rock. Lastly is value, and as said for form, value helps to create form. In this painting, you can see a lighter value towards the middle, because the sun is setting. Since the sun setting, it’s lighter near the middle, and as it moves upwards and downwards, the lighting and shading gets darker.

Recreation of "Red Poppy" by Georgia O'Keefe, Pencil Crayons, 27 x 21 cm, Feb 23