Perfume Project

I am a fairly new basenotes member, I am an artist and while looking for new perfumes to try I learned a lot about perfumes, and about vintage perfumes through basenotes.

More than that, thanks to some extremely generous basenotes members I have been able to sample vintage perfumes I was very curious for and which inspired me to try my hand at a new art project based on vintage perfumes and vintage advertisements.

As a child I was already enthralled by vintage illustrations and advertisements, those of Rene Gruau especially. One for ''jolie Madame'' has always lingered in my mind.

I also love lace and ladylike stuff, falbalas and fanfreluges!

I try to wear the perfume I am painting about, and I am trying to get the vintage perfumes but I don't have all those I want to paint yet!

Anyway, I want to share my paintings with you, because basenotes has been for a great part the inspiration in the emergence of the project and I hope many basenoters will give some feedback to me.
Ideas or brilliant vintage perfumes I have not heard about yet, are welcome too.

All paintings will on my blog too, as well as longer rants, I have only just started: http://aafke-art.com/

TABU
You the enchantress!





Emeraude

Hillaire, That is a great idea! I had not thought of e-mailing Dana... I could try and see if Dana might not be interested in using them for advertisement. That would nicely close the circle again too.

The kitties are happily reunited with their doting owner, and had survived the long trip without any after effects.
I am really glad you like my work, I often feel unsure about it. I had been debating a few days if I dared to post here at all, but the Basenoters are responsible in a large part for the project in the first place.

Klute, thanks!

LiveJazz, That is very strange, I have never had visitors to my blog who could not see the pictures!

Le Grand Duc, Yes, those are my eyes

Evangeline, Yes, that whole free style of painting was very popular for a long time. That particular illustration was in my mind when I thought of Emeraude. Even fashion illustrations for magazines were often painted by illustrators rather than photographed, the models would model the dresses for the illustrators.
Ah, those were the days!
I think Rene Gruau is the very best though! Of course he again was influenced by Degas and Toulouse Lautrec, as I am too, obviously.
That wonderful brushwork, almost abstract yet detailed where necessary. And both Degas and Toulouse Lautrec loved horses too!

Killiwia, and thank you for telling me you like them!

Gary thanks, I love basenotes! I did not think I would get addicted so soon!

I plan to exhibit the series in December, and I have been trying to get some nice vintage fragrances together. I want to exhibit these with the paintings. And I am looking at some very hip fashion shops rather than the ''art galleries''.
I also want to have a table with small glass dishes with the vintage scents in them so people can sniff and look.

I read somewhere on basenotes that a piece of cloth is way better as paper, or perhaps a bit of chamois leather?
I could cut them in pretty shapes, add the perfume and put them in the petrie dishes.
What would be the best way of preserving the scents?

My next paintings will be Balmain de Balmain, got a tiny vintage mini of that, and Houbigant's Chantilly which I like more and more, I am finding it very relaxing powdery, spicy and sexy at the same time.

I am afraid the exhibition is likely to be in Amsterdam, but that made me think, why not look for a venue in Dallas?

I am thinking of making the cats story into a childrens book, how funny the idea occurred to other people too!

I have just finished a Tabu painting, and have started a Balmain de Balmain one!

I love that quote! And it is so true! Love stands at the beginning of all art!

Perfumed Lady, I am very glad you like the Emeraude painting!
I tried to evoke a sort of magical feeling with it.

Le Grand Duc

Pour-Monsieur Thank you

Lilybelle, I certainly listen to music too, as well as wearing the fragrances. I find music carries me over the difficult parts, where I am doubting if my painting is going anywhere, or is worthwhile finishing. And it also carries me through the boring bits.
There are boring bits in paining!

Here is the next one:TABU, anything might happen...
I have finished the Balmain one today and will post on that tomorrow when I have the pictures done.

I will keep updating with my latest pictures sure!
While researching vintage perfumes I really fell in love with Houbigant's Chantilly. there will be a Chantilly painting soon!

About music, I don't think it's strange to put to very diverse styles of music in the same category when they are having the same effect on you. I think of music in two categories, Good music and Bad music.
I do experience these things with music. Some noises like the constant drum of an airco I can find very annoying and bad for my work.
On the whole I find music very important for painting, I always listen to music. and different moods, or different paintings, call for different music.

I know, there are these moments when you want to stop but you really know you should work on it. Or you are scared to do something fairly extreme which might spoil the whole thing. I had something like that with my Balmain painting which I finished today, and I have documented it! I think I am going to show the photo's of different stages on my blog.

But there is also the danger of not stopping in time!
Nothing more boring as a painting which has been worked on too long!

One of my most brilliant teachers always said: ''A good painter is a lazy painter''!!!
And the older I get the more I realize that that is a very true statement!

I know, it is Miss Balmain, my first perfume love!
Anyway, after I have done enough vintage I will get on with the modern ones, can't leave those out altogether. My plan for this series is vintage up to the fifties.

twolf, The ''Quelques Fleurs'' is my most recent buy, it's in the Netherlands, so it will have to wait until I am back! I tried it once. It was an E-bay buy, Chantilly and Quelques Fleurs in two spray bottles.
btw, those are the most beautiful sprays ever, very soft misty spray, so totally unlike the spray mechanisms of all my modern perfumes, even the most expensive ones!

lillybelle, it's really true, on the days when I am at my best it seems as if I do very little work, yet everything pans out, and then suddenly there is this painting and I have to tell myself to stop!
It's got to do with planning your painting as well, before you start painting you should work out how you are going to start, which tactics you are going to follow...

and dogs and horses...

Here is the Miss Balmain painting. I have put up more photos of the sketch and earlier stages on my blog.
http://aafke-art.com/2010/10/27/miss-balmain/
I was a bit scared to do the black outline. I would welcome input.