#mitau

Selfies by Mitau !

MITAU - Mitawa, now JELGAVA / Jełgawa - Latvija / Łotwa

Audrey Fall - Mitau

The cards shown here are of the Governorate of Livonia, Courland Governorate, Grand Duchy of Finland, Vyborg Governorate (actually Viipuri Province at this time), and Uusimaa (Nyland) Province.  The last two were provinces of Finland.

Yah, it’s taken way too long to finish the color studies for this scene -- I hope I’ll be faster with the next one. These are the completed color studies for pp4--9 of Spirits & Seekers: Cagliostro in Courland, with the end of that scene finished on P10 and the initial tone washes (sans cast shadows) for the first panel of the next scene, where the séance finally begins. Any nitpicky advice is welcome at this point, since I’d rather get these things fixed before I do the final art on these pages.

A few weeks ago, I did something overdue (and posted about it): I sketched a conjectural floor plan for the second floor of the Mitau (Jelgava) mansion of Count Johann von Medem, Baroness Elisa von der Recke’s father. (Yesterday I revised this layout again, see top image. Absent an actual floor plan of Johann’s mansion turning up, that probably settles it. Johann’s mansion was destroyed in WWII and all that survives are photos, including some interiors that were clearly re-done in the 19th century.) I realized that what this meant was that a page I’d already painted of Spirits & Seekers had to change. The scripts says the blue canopy under which Elisa and her female relatives are initiated as Egyptian Freemasons by “Countess” Seraphina di Cagliostro is in the Great Hall at Johann’s house, but I just made something up and didn’t even think about how the tent would be oriented in what is the largest function room -- in other words, the ballroom -- in the mansion. Moreover, I completely overlooked the obvious fact about this room that is clear from photos of the exterior of the building: That the center window is actually a set of French doors exiting onto a small balcony facing the river. So I’m re-painting that panel, which is fortunately (so far) the only one of its kind. In the first (2017) version of this panel (2nd image above), I showed a doorway behind and showed part of the chandelier that illuminates the scene, in the 2018 version (3d image), not only are the colors deeper, but I’ve simplified the scenery. However, since there will be subsequent scenes in this space, I have returned to the busier rococo look I was trying for the first time around -- and it’s clear that (a) the space is large enough to serve as a ballroom (Cagliostro’s first séance with the von Medems will be here), and (b) the tent is centered along the long axis of the room. I’ve also gone back to including sconces and bits of chandelier, which will help in keeping my focus on where the light sources are when I paint this.

Day 2 working on Page 003. Trying to apply the wet-in-wet lighting effects demonstrated to me. y my instructor, Frank Costantino of Winthrop, before I left Mass. on 1/20. I'm pretty sloppy -- he stresses the need for water control, and I still haven't mastered it. I also struggled with the fact that I reconsidered exactly where the dusk light was coming from. The west, to be sure, but since it's March -- before the solstice -- probably not *due* west, so not straight down this east-west street in this high latitude. So the "rosy" side of things had to be modified (after yesterday's washes were good and dry) to the best of my ability. Since the red and orange pigments I'm using are staining, this wound up being kind of half-assed. one does what one can.

German vintage postcard