In this prompt, I was asked to take a classic piece of media and translate it into a vector motif with a completely different and significantly limited color palette than the original.
Vectorized and reimagined
Looking for inspiration, I chose a piece that was mounted on the walls of my painting class, "A Girl Reading" by Joan-Honoré Fragonard. So how would I simplify the original scene?
Hand-tracing the original work, clarifying the lines, and adding my own twist to the shadows in the background of the work, I created the rendition of this 18th century masterpiece with a limited color palette. I chose a palette of only 6 colors inspired another of my favorite works, Chardin's still-life, "Blue Vase" (below).
Chardin's Blue Vase
The greatest challenge in this project: removing detail. Coming from a background of classical art, I was first learning how to prioritize information by deciding how much take out or leave in, while still retaining the ambiance and beauty of the original in a more modern way. I would need to leave behind my tendency to strive for realism, but I would also need to strategically pull out shapes which sufficiently guided the viewer to see dimension, life, movement, and not just shapes. Color was just as crucial, too: differences in hue and tone would guide the viewer's eye to see shapes receding or approaching based on color temperature and contrast with adjacent elements' colors. As I navigated color and shape, I created interest through vector, but I removed much of the detail that was accomplished through oil in the original (below).
Joan-Honoré Fragonard's "A Girl Reading"
