The picture above is the base image used to create the L’Age Mûr art design. L’Age Mûr is located at The Rodin Museum in Paris, France: 77 rue de Varenne, 75007. Click on the picture to see the abstract version in my shop.
L’Age Mûr is the ultimate design revelation for me. Almost 10 years of making abstract art in this style and I finally hit the perfect texture and aesthetic. I was always fascinated with watercolor and oil paintings. I just love the look. There’s been years of struggle in trying to find the right texture for my artwork. A few designs have the perfect texture like Lighthouse and Soldier’s Arch, but it’s always been very difficult to apply this texture when working in Paintshop. I have to blend several effects together and most of the time there’s a conflict.
Throughout the past two months, I thought about my work a lot. I didn’t want to mention this in the last post but I had another mental breakdown. It was a combination of things but one thing that stuck out to me was the quality of my work. I’ve never been 100 percent happy with it. I always try to improve my work. I felt inferior to most artists because I wasn’t using Photoshop. I’ve had comments saying my work looks dirty and it could look cleaner. I was thinking about that a lot. I know I shouldn’t care about the other people’s opinion and for a long time I didn’t want to admit that my work looks awful. I can love the blends but the textures could be off or it looks somewhat pixelated and distorted. The music videos are a different story which I will talk about as well. However, about a week ago, I downloaded Photoshop and thought if I can just add a finishing texture to my work that can solve this problem then it would be amazing and make me a believer in the program. As mentioned, I always aimed to have my work appear like oil painting or watercolor. Turns out Photoshop has one effect that Paintshop does not have and it’s oil painting. I tried out the effect and it completely transformed my final design with L’Age Mûr. I was staring at my perfect texture. The effect made the design look 100 times better. I don’t want to use this term but I will: It made the design look clean. I was amazed at the result. I finally found the perfect texture that took years for me to develop in Paintshop and was always hard to replicate. You can still see all of my blends but the oil painting photoshop effect feels like it adds a finishing gloss to the design.
I honestly adore this design now and before there were parts me that hated it. It took me quite a bit of time to make this. I had to take breaks. The more I worked on the design, the more I realized I took a really bad photo of the sculpture. I didn’t want to abandon this design because I wanted to feature something that Camille Claudel created in this album. When I initially finished, a part of me felt like I gave up too soon on it but after adding the effect it just heightened the design to a level I didn’t expect.
This design does feature Pierre Wissant in the background. You can see the original image to your left. I think it adds more dimension to the design. It pained me to remove the young woman in the final design but I think the version that you see in the video album looks better. The thumbnail for this post does feature the young woman. I did talk briefly in the Pierre post about why I wanted to make this design. I visited the Rodin Museum on my first day in Paris, December 8th, 2021. L’Age Mûr was one of the sculptures in the museum and was created by Camille Claudel. I had no idea at the time at the time about Camille Claudel. It was only after visiting the museum and loving the L’Age Mûr that I looked more into her. I think her story is tragic. I won’t go into details but after reading a bit about her I felt sad and wanted to feature her in this album. It honestly made me look at things a bit differently. This is one of reasons why a part of me doesn’t like to look much into the lives of artists. I also try to limit myself, with not much success, in this blog. It’s no secret, if you read past posts that I have serious mental health issues. Really makes no sense to hide it or be ashamed. I guess the main point is that someone else reading my blog can have a different take on it which can affect the perspective of the art itself. Maybe you might get turned off and feel disgusted by the art since now you know something personal about the artist you don’t like.
The personal life of an artist can play a big part on how art is made. I know sometimes when I’m angry, my work is more chaotic. I purposely try to be in a good mood when making new art. I don’t like how my art looks when I’m sad and angry. In all honesty, I like making most of my work when I’m very much inebriated. It feels easier to make it in that state as oppose to being sober. See… there’s another sad and potential harmful fact. Why encourage art made by someone who loves to make art while inebriated? That’s my point and it’s not the same situation with Camille Claudel and Rodin but I do see things differently and I know I wouldn’t have if I didn’t look more into Camille Claudel and this sculpture.
I thought the look of the sculpture at the time was very interesting. I’m terrible with describing art, my apologies, but it intrigued me because many sculptures in the museum had loud or surprising expressions that pulled me in or had their own personality like L’Age Mûr. Something just felt sad and mournful about it. It does look like the young woman is pleading for the man to stay with her but is being pulled away by the older woman. It looks like he wants to stay but can’t. I love you but the love I have for the older woman has deep, solidifying roots. This woman takes care of me in ways you can not and she has taken care of me for a very long time. I mean… just look at the woman’s posture. She has the appearance of a motherly figure. Youth can be attractive, seductive, and just a beautiful thing. When you have something concrete and sustainable with deep roots, a love that matured with you, I think it may be harder to let that go. Even if you can still have that in some capacity with a love that’s newer, younger, and more beautiful in mind and body. There could be a soul connection, something behind just chemistry. Makes you think… That’s the one thing I really love about art and this sculpture. Being in that museum has truly changed my perspective on art. I look at sculptures completely different now. I went to the Louvre on my birthday, after Rodin, with a high interest in finding emotive sculptures. Originally, I went with the sole purpose of finding the Mona Lisa and just being in the presence of wonderful art inside the louvre. I never had an interest in sculptures before visiting the Rodin Museum and I thank Rodin and Camille Claudel for my newfound love of sculptures.
Art is truly wonderful. You can learn so much about yourself and the world. Well… that’s how I see it. I wanted to make something that shows my appreciation for Camille Claudel. I will forever be grateful for my time in Paris. It was honestly the best 2 and half days of my life. Yes… it wasn’t perfect but I always look back with fond memories. I look at Paris with so much love. Before, I looked at Paris from a distance. An unattainable, foolish dream from a poor, disillusioned wannabe artist. Now, I look at Paris with memories and a deep love that’s changed my life. Being inside Rodin, Musee D’Orsay, and the Eiffel Tower has changed in fundamental ways. Just walking the streets of Paris has changed me. Almost twenty years in trying to have just one moment in Paris completes me in ways I just can’t define. To actually be inside a dream was the single most incredible moment in my life. I learned so much about myself and I will be always love Paris until my dying breath.
Credits
Programs used: Paintshop Pro and Adobe After Effects
Design Base: Photo taken of L’Age Mûr (created by Camille Claudel), plus a digital abstract drawing I created.
Art Design created by me (Katherine Barnett|BeatnikBlends)
Click here to view L’Age Mûr in my shop.