San Luis Obispo I Madonnari Festival, September 2009

Our subject for the SLO I Madonnari festival this year was a painting by J. W. Waterhouse called After The Dance. It shows a pair of young dancers in Ancient Greece relaxing after their performance. This is an early painting by Waterhouse, who later became the best known of the third wave of Pre-Raphaelite painters.

Original painting After The Dance by J. W. Waterhouse.

Cheryl paints the girl dancer's face and arm.

Close view of the young dancer's head soon after it was painted.

Here's how far we got by the time we stopped for lunch on Saturday.

Wayne paints the girl dancer's skirt.

The view from the top on Saturday afternoon, showing how the painting is skewed.

Late Saturday, Cheryl is getting the two background figures into the painting.

Sunday morning: all of the figures are at least begun (except for the painting on the wall). We keep telling people that we've done the hard parts--the rest would be easy. It was, depending on how you define the term, "easy."

Cheryl paints the peacock-feather fan while Wayne tiles the floor.

Wayne begins work on the vertical architecture.

The perspective view, where the pillar looks straight. Cheryl sits on the boy dancer's head while she paints the scenery behind him.

The girl's head on her pillows with the peacock feather fan and the boy behind her.

Wayne works on the pillars next to the musician and the listener behind him. The foot belongs to David, Wayne's brother.

All the pillars are fluted at the top, so Wayne borrowed a straight edge (thanks, Julio!) to keep them all pointed in the same direction.

Almost done! Wayne supervises while David adds in the final bits.

Once we finished the painting, we posed for the official paintings. Here you can see how we skewed the painting to make it look right to people walking beside the art.

The trees down the street cast interesting shadows across the painting, mimicking the lighting within the painting.

Close-up of the boy dancer. We think that this dancer is a boy due to his clothing style (and shorter hair).

Close-up of the completed girl dancer.

Both dancers together, photographed from a low perspective to try to get the two dancers back into perspective in the photo

The dancers in a photo taken from the place where the perspective works.

The completed musician and listener.

One last look at the completed piece before we head for home.

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