Katherine Keenum

This is not an April Fool’s joke, but a genuine double-page spread. Anyone care to speculate on the sex of author and illustrator?

Art students in the 19th C studied older artists’ paintings by copying them,Velázquez being a favorite. Many continued the practice throughout their careers. The work of Jeanette’s contemporary, Finnish artist Helene Schjerfbeck (1862-1946), shows how interesting the copies could be and how different their original work eventually became.  Read More 

Early in my research when I was discovering that there were indeed women art students in Paris in the late 19th C, I came across this copyist. I have loved her and giggled over her ever since. Wouldn’t Jeanette have longed for that dress? But can any painter, even one who prefers watercolors  Read More 

Web link: Looky, looky! A lovely recommendation in Denver for Where the Light Falls as one of three novels that expand consciousness of what women can accomplish. Thank you, Barbara Steinhauser!

Mention of Rodolphe Julian (1839–1907) in last week’s post on the clothed model made me realize that I should post on Julian himself—and, lo, another kneeling figure.

Born (and buried) in the village of Lapalud, Haut Vaucluse, in Provence, he was sent at an early age to Marseille to work in a bookstore. In the store he read  Read More 

Blog tip: Oh, the serendipitous discoveries available on the web! Emily Brontë left sketches? I never knew until I was taking a break and came upon this picture Sketchers too, an archived post at the blog Sketchuniverse. Does anyone know whether this illustrates a story Brontë wrote? Is anyone inspired to write one based on it?  Read More 

"The naked upper branches reached toward a primordial wildness having little to do with parks or men.… The trees at Shiloh had been like that.… In the growing dusk, golden lights pricked out the Rue de Rivoli to his left.… At the rat-a-tat-tat of a drum being beaten to signal the closing hour, he felt a momentary urge to flout the martial-sounding order."

I was looking for a different painting by James Tissot last week  Read More 

Blog tip: At his blog, Illustration Art, David Apatoff has recently run a series of posts on comic strips and graphic novels, called “The Lost Vocabulary of Visual Storytelling.” Day 4 discusses jumping from the start of an action in one panel to the result in the next. Any thoughts on when skipping is effective in written narrative? Read More 

When Jeanette first goes to the Académie Julian, Rodolphe Julian explains that he offers three classes to women in which the models are nude, draped, or fully clothed. The last was intended primarily for amateurs whose embarrassment at naked flesh could be accommodated. Nevertheless, the folds of clothing also required careful study as  Read More 

Blog tip: Mary Hamer has graciously played host to a guest blog post from me on handling historical figures in Where the Light Falls. Check it out!