15 Art Nouveau Elements To Use In Your Own Work

[@Beauxsmom]

Thank you for your videos …. No rambling just straight forward information.

[@crysodenkirkart]

Thank you! I'm glad you enjoyed it!

[@gennydavidsonsmith85]

Thank you for posting this, it’s just what I needed. Clear and concise. I’ve just started a painting in the style of Charles Rennie Mackintosh and you have given me valuable guidelines. Great!

[@crysodenkirkart]

I'm glad you found it useful! I'm planning more videos on this theme, pulling out elements of different styles and movements that people can use in their own work to evoke those styles without copying them directly. Are there any other eras or movements that you're particularly interested in?

[@gennydavidsonsmith85]

@@crysodenkirkart I’m a bit of a butterfly, I’m afraid. Abstract in both watercolour and acrylics, pencil portraits, oil and pastel occasionally, charcoal, line and wash… I could go on. My favourite periods are Impressionism, post Impressionism and Pre-Raphaelites. Artists I specifically love are John Singer Sargent, Anders Zorn, Georges Seurat, Charles Rennie Mackintosh of course, and Brian Rutenberg. Told you in was a butterfly!

[@lizilachman6809]

This video was exactly what I was looking for! Thank you for putting it into words and providing so many examples!

[@crysodenkirkart]

I'm glad you found it useful!

[@gabriellegavin8211]

Wow! Just found you while looking for Kuretake watercolour reviews and love, love , love this video. I’m a full time artist but without the benefit of a formal art education have NO art history knowledge whatsoever. You’ve presented this info concisely and in a really clear engaging way. Thanks so much !! (Btw , I never comment on videos so please take this as a sign of just how good this is!)

[@crysodenkirkart]

Thank you! I have a lot more videos recorded, I just haven't had time to edit and post them yet. Something about October always derails things every year. If there's a particular subject you'd like me to cover, let me know and I'll make sure to add it to my future videos!

[@tylerclark3686]

Thanks for the video! I like the way you explain your process and the history as relevant to the artform. It's fascinating and informative! With art nouveau being associated more with feminine figures, I am struggling with templates for sketching male/masculine figures using art nouveau style. For me, I associate the 'curvilinear' male body with the curvilinear art nouveau style. Do you have any advice beyond these 15 principles?

[@crysodenkirkart]

I think you could still use the basic principle of how the lines flow to create the poses for a more masculine figure. Society at large has a tendency to draw them in a more power stance boxy hard-lined way, but if you use a french curve to draw your basic stance (meaning, the curve of the spine, the center line from top of head to the toes, the angles that arms and legs rest in), you'll go a long way to incorporating them into the flow of the rest of the document. Some of the Sandra Bernhardt posters by Mucha might be a good study here too (I know, I said "more than Mucha" but he's got some really good examples for this and it's different from the floating ladies in white dresses trope). In some of them she's standing tall in what you might consider a power pose, not curvy at all, and in those, there are a lot of strong verticals. The clothing and figure don't contain perfectly straight lines, they're still a bit organic, but very strongly vertical. I'm thinking specifically of the Medee poster, where the bulk of the image is vertical, and then it's rounded off at the top and with an organic mess at the ground. It relies more on boundary breaking than an overall curvy flow, reserving the curves for the bits that are transgressed. Though the subject is a woman, I think that's a very masculine piece.

[@tylerclark3686]

@@crysodenkirkart thank you so much!! I'll check this out.

[@crysodenkirkart]

@@tylerclark3686 glad I could help!