I've Added 'Fine Art Reproductions for Interior Decorating' to |Fine Art & Illustration|

If you scroll under my original portraiture and illustration in the Fine Art gallery, you can now see some pieces I've created for the purpose of interior decorating. These are painstakingly faithful reproductions of Japanese fine art pieces from Edo period Japan (re imagined as tapestries) that I've made to add an air of verisimilitude to a Japanese inspired interior. Authentic Japanese antiques are faaaar out of my price range (and The Old Plum is in the MET!), so this was a pretty good compromise for the Japanese art freak on a budget. They were an epic ordeal to make, being gigantic, so here they are- since no one but me and friends would see them otherwise.

The reproductions were created using fabric paint and gold glazed cotton, which was then sewn to a heavy satin border, bag lined and hung. You can see some 'making of' photos in my Fabric Painting 101 tutorial. Counter-intuitively, these mere reproductions were intensely difficult to create- harder than my originals!

Hand Painted Reproduction of Kano Sansetsu's 'The Old Plum' 142cm x 63cm

Reproduction painting before wall mounting.

Reproduction painting after mounting on wall.

Hand Painted Reproduction of 'Early Spring' by Miyata Shizan 30cm x 115cm

Reproduction hanging before mounting on wall (left), and shown on wall with tapestry hanger (right).

I learned a lot by having to so intensely examine the work of these masters, and for such long periods of time. I can completely see why fine art students for hundreds of years were once trained via the method of reproducing masterworks. If you're not a formally trained artist (I hate the word amateur), you could try this technique to hone your skills and have some direct interaction with a Master you admire. I went to art school, but this method of learning seems to have largely been abandoned, and I don't personally know anyone who learned this way. Shame really, not only does it improve your skill and give you a deep appreciation for artists who came before, it's kind of humbling to be hands-on confronted with how badass they were.