I have a niece who has been taking dance lessons since she was little, so I decided to paint a little oil painting of a young dancer practicing her moves. Not long before I painted this, I had visited the Smithsonian National Gallery of art to see the Degas exhibit. Degas was fascinated by the dancers backstage and painted them practicing or waiting to go on stage. His work was beautiful. He worked both in oils and pastels and I really loved the soft rich colors of his work in pastels.
I took these photos of a couple of Degas’ works when I was touring the exhibit so that I could study the color palette that he used.
When I painted my small oil painting, I decided to use some of the same rich colors in my painting with deep golds, greens and reds. I certainly didn’t pull it off as well as I had hoped, but I’m happy with the result anyway. I hope you like my painting Practice Makes Perfect.
