Help Me, Lazy Web!
Tuesday, December 14th, 2010 03:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
caddymanHello, Everybody Peeps!
I am touting shamelessly for source material and I am hoping you splendid people can help. Allow me to explain:
It occurs to me that the stair well of our house requires some sort of decoration; not just painting - though that is true and sometime in the Spring we will be getting all hot under the collar moving furniture and trying out colour schemes – but a picture or two. It occurred to me that it might be fun to have portraits of old generals and admirals staring imperiously down as one moves up and down the stairs. Furtle, to her great credit, didn’t demur on this point, but being a woman of sage perspicacity, pointed out that given the generally low level of ept in the house we would have them at best wonky and at worst shattered at the foot of the stairs very quickly. We are an enthusiastic if graceless pair of souls.
The idea is not entirely abandoned, though it requires some thought.
In the meantime – and this, I think we can manage without too many tears, is a medium-sized portrait above the stairs and facing the bedroom door well out of range of wagging tails and flailing limbs. The picture I have in mind is of an ancient and imperious dowager of the Aunt Agatha type (two mentions in as many days: third time will be the charm), staring with vague disappointment and distaste down her nose at anyone on the stairs.
This is my project for the New Year (once I have done some drawing I promised to do some months ago >ahem<). I have a mental picture that I shall be using as the basis of the portrait (I haven’t decided yet whether it will be paints or pastels), but I need some reference material and my Google-Fu is weak. The best I have found thus far is a photograph of Maggie Smith as the Dowager Countess of Grantham from the TV series Downton Abbey. It’s good, but it’s not quite the look I am after. I want something more obviously mid Victorian, with rather more fur.
Any ideas for decent reference material? I begs for help, My Dears, I begs for help.
I am touting shamelessly for source material and I am hoping you splendid people can help. Allow me to explain:
It occurs to me that the stair well of our house requires some sort of decoration; not just painting - though that is true and sometime in the Spring we will be getting all hot under the collar moving furniture and trying out colour schemes – but a picture or two. It occurred to me that it might be fun to have portraits of old generals and admirals staring imperiously down as one moves up and down the stairs. Furtle, to her great credit, didn’t demur on this point, but being a woman of sage perspicacity, pointed out that given the generally low level of ept in the house we would have them at best wonky and at worst shattered at the foot of the stairs very quickly. We are an enthusiastic if graceless pair of souls.
The idea is not entirely abandoned, though it requires some thought.
In the meantime – and this, I think we can manage without too many tears, is a medium-sized portrait above the stairs and facing the bedroom door well out of range of wagging tails and flailing limbs. The picture I have in mind is of an ancient and imperious dowager of the Aunt Agatha type (two mentions in as many days: third time will be the charm), staring with vague disappointment and distaste down her nose at anyone on the stairs.
This is my project for the New Year (once I have done some drawing I promised to do some months ago >ahem<). I have a mental picture that I shall be using as the basis of the portrait (I haven’t decided yet whether it will be paints or pastels), but I need some reference material and my Google-Fu is weak. The best I have found thus far is a photograph of Maggie Smith as the Dowager Countess of Grantham from the TV series Downton Abbey. It’s good, but it’s not quite the look I am after. I want something more obviously mid Victorian, with rather more fur.
Any ideas for decent reference material? I begs for help, My Dears, I begs for help.