Renoir–Our Version

Pierre-Auguste Renoir (February 25 1841 –  December 3, 1919) was a French artist who helped pave the way for the Impressionist Era.

Renoir’s still life paintings were often quirky because of the items he chose to use as flower vases.    In keeping with his still life technique we got quirky too.

I didn’t have canvas on hand, so we used water color paper and then painted a layer of white tempera paint over it, to hide the grain. 

Then we assembled our quirky still life using one of Lindsey’s new cowgirl boots and some seasonal silk flowers.  

We then lightly sketched the still life onto our painted paper.  As you can see by her expression below, Olivia isn’t big on quirky still life, ahem.

Once we’d lightly drawn in the boot-vase and flowers, we used our water color paints to bring the painting to life. In hindsight, we should have used more water and less color, as Renoir’s work was more with pastels.

The boot on the right is mine.  Lindsey quipped “why don’t you just add some bells to it and turn it into an elf shoe?”   Smart aleck.