Femme Flamande

It was the thick fur trim on Erté’s “Flamenco” 1987 skirt detail was the what drew me to this piece. And with the wonderfully understated top with the fabric loosely flowing and wrapping the chest and wrapping up the arm. I first saw Flamenco in the Martin Lawrence Galleries collection and new that the next piece I made had to draw inspiration from it.

The fun twist with the name “Flamenco” is that a large number of people think the word flamenco translates to flamingo. But actually is derived of the word “Flemish” or gypsies like leading me to call my piece “Femme Flamande” meaning Flemish woman.

Drawing the fur details with long winding strokes that overlap to create details and I decided to deviate from the use of black for the fur trim, I created this piece using colours that match a flamingo as a fun nod to the common misinterpretation.

Some challenges I faced creating this piece was adjusting the brush settings to allow for just the right texture on Procreate and while learning to control the long brush strokes to achieve the skirt. I used the Frankentoon‘s Magika brush set as the starting point for the skirt’s texture and really loved the range of brushes in the pack – can’t wait to do another artwork with it!