Today’s Photo Friday is entitled: “It’s life imitating high art”

Read more about what we’re doing this week here.

Follow the links below for other entries (I will add links as entries come in!):

Sky Windows & Idea Jump! & BlahBlah Blog

This is a fun Photo Friday I’ve been really looking forward to! My main criteria for choosing a painting was the “Artwork” having a cat in it (I love cats!) – so it wasn’t difficult to know what I wanted to recreate. After all, I’ve already written a  review on this favourite painting of mine, by the wonderfully talented comtemporary artist David Hockney: Mr and Mrs Clark and Percy.

I decided to add a cunning twist to my reproduction of the image - I appear in it myself!  I also digitally added the lilies and the old fashioned 1970s telephone (as well as Henry – see below!)

NO – I haven’t cheated! I set up the camera on a tripod, arranged the room (to as near as damn it, like the painting), persuaded my husband to drape him self in the chair with a smokey in hand, and this is the best bit – I planned how to add the wrong cat later, before posing myself – and the shutter clicking remotely! 

If you haven’t read my review of the painting you may be feeling completely confused by now! You see – in the original painting it isn’t Percy at all – it’s another pet cat that Mr & Mrs Clark owned (actually dogs have owners, cats have servants!). The cat in my picture? Not next door’s cat at all (he was too arsy about posing and now I’m sporting a large scratch and wearing a band aid!) – so (and this is the clever bit) I digitally added an image of my own dear cat Henry (who died in 2004). I think Hockney would approve of this, since he has done all sorts of digitally creative things with his art in the past; he once did a huge artwork that he faxed in small sections and was then assembled into the work of art!

This photo wasn’t easy by the way – I had just 10 seconds to get from clicking the timer button on the camera and in to pose position (hence the strange expression on my face!)  We also had to re-take the photo several times as we both kept laughing out loud – so by the time the final image was taken we were both biting our cheeks to stop the laughter!

Pierre and I still miss Henry greatly – so popping him into a photograph of us in our new home (we moved here after Henry died) seems the most wonderful and natural thing to do. I think Henry would conclude it was purr-fect! We miss you Henry!

The original painting below (CLICK the image for a larger view of the painting):

Mr & Mrs Clark and Percy by David Hockney

And my Photo Friday entry for “It’s life imitating high art”:

Mr and Mrs Marshall and Henry by Jan Marshall ©

 

Next week’s entry? It’s Lou at blahblahblog’s turn to select the title if she’d like to! So I’ll type it here later when she’s chosen it.

Later: Lou’s decided on ”Juxtaposition” – I checked Wikpedia for clues and it said: ”two random objects moving in parallel, or a technique intended to stimulate creativity.” OK?