Good morning!
When I was fantasy shopping Etsy and Ebay last week at work (sorry, work, I have my priorities), one of my favorite searches, "silent movie star", turned up this print from Cate Parr:
What can I say?! I am a big, BIG fan of these. With all the weird, weird celebrity "art" out there on the internet (I came
across this looking up Joan Crawford...HOW?! WHY?!), it is refreshing to see a hyper-talented professional creating affordable prints that just cry out "Lisa, take me home!". I love how not-twee and not-amateur these pieces manage to be while also being something accessible. Oh, and how they reflect a taste in pop culture that is HIGHLY evolved. Prints of sixties' model Penelope Tree alongside a watercolored re-imagining of a Godard movie poster? YES AND YES. Can we be friends?! #letstalkaboutnoveauvaguemovies
It's interesting how much detail Parr manages to pack into what I essentially think of as a soft-focus medium. This portrait of Marlene Dietrich, for example, manages to define the contours of her wondrous cheekbones and the detail of her waved hair while still allowing the kind of smudgy color variation that makes watercolors so dreamy. Those eyes! Parr captures completely the twenty-yard smoldering stare Dietrich perfected onscreen in the thirties'. I want wall-sized mural of this piece, exactly as is.
Lucky for you and I,
all of these are available on Cate Parr's Etsy shop, ranging in price from $35 for a museum grade archival print, to $800 for some of the original watercolors themselves. While I see myself there on the low end of the retail scale as far as what I'm able to buy, wouldn't it be something to have the original! Maybe in the next life, when I'm a Powerball heiress.
So! Which of these prints really gets your heartbeat going? Have you seen any art that's really caught your eye lately? What kinds of things do you habitually look up on Etsy? Any fabulous shops I need to know about online? Let's talk!
That's all for today...I'm off to get some work done. Have a great Thursday, and I'll see you tomorrow for Photo Friday! Til then.
These are wonderful! Thank you for sharing
ReplyDeleteAnytime! I want a copy of each for my living room, these are the living end of watercolor prints! :)
DeleteI want all of these!!!!!!!! I love watercolors and only wish I were this skilled.
ReplyDeleteWhat you said. And my sister (who was an art major) mentioned when I showed her these that watercolor is SUPER hard, giving me even more respect for the amount of detail the woman was able to show in her work!
DeleteHoly Moly!! Those are absolutely stunning! I especially like the one of "Tilly Losch"
ReplyDeleteYou know, she's the one figure I don't know much about out of all these celebrity likenesses, but based on that smoldering stare, I'd sure like to know more!
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