Female Dancer (using Symmetry & Pattern Layers in Affinity Photo)

[DelN]

Female Dancer (using Symmetry & Pattern Layers in Affinity Photo)

I wanted to create a set of images that evoked 'La Belle Époque', a period in Paris from 1871 to 1914 which really fascinates me, in which writers, composers, artists and poets were struggling with their craft, and architects created amazing structures like the Paris Metro and the Eiffel Tower, many of whom were notorious absinthe drinkers.

Artists Paul Gauguin, Henri Matisse, John Singer Sargent, Henri Rousseau, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Gustave Moreau Gustav Klimt and Pablo Picasso, Illustrators Gustave Moreau and Aubrey Beardsley (who illustrated the 'Yellow Book'), Composers Eric Satie, Claude Debussy, Writers Guy de Maupassant, Gustav Flaubert ('Madame Bovary', 'Salammbo', 'Sentimental Education'), Émile Zola, Victor Hugo, Ivan Turgenev, Marcel Proust, Colette (writer of the 'Claudine' novels), André Gide, Théophile Gautier,  Arthur Rimbaud, Paul Verlaine, Joris-Karl Huysmans ('À rebours' (Against Nature) and Oscar Wilde, Poets Charles Baudelaire ('Les Fleurs du Mal').

I wanted to use the colours from the painting 'The Man in the Red Coat' by Julian Barnes and 'Hygeia (Red Woman with Gold Snake)' by Gustav Klimt.

I found an image of a dancer, which I brought into Affinity Designer and first drew the full figure, then separated the vectors into Arm 1, Arm 2, Dress, Leg 1, Leg 2, Hair, Head, Fingertips of Hand so that I could fill them separately with textures and overlays.

I created several textures for the background and created a gold circle using my free 'Byzantium' Gold brushes and set it into the centre of another shape I had made using a Pattern layer in Affinity Photo. I overlaid the background with a couple of textures, using HSL Adjustment layers and Layer Blending Modes so that the gold looked tarnished.

I flipped the 'wallpaper' that I had created and made a 'floor' for the female dancer, then found an image of a sofa and masked out the fabric and overlaid a squares pattern and then changed it all to red/magenta.

I filled the dancer's body/face with textures, which I overlaid and again used HSL Adjustment layers and Layer Blending Modes. I did the same for her dress and hair, but used different textures, patterns  and colours.

Female Dancer w Red Sofa on Gold (Symmetry & Pattern)

Female Dancer w Magenta Sofa on Red (Symmetry & Pattern)

Female Dancer on Red & Gold (Symmetry & Pattern)

Female Dancer on Gold (Symmetry & Pattern)

Female Dancer on Gold 02 (Symmetry & Pattern)