When we were asked to do a modern take on Renoir’s famous painting of the Victorian era little girl in a garden, we decided to choose a stock photo to base our layout design on.
Auguste Renoir A Girl with a Watering Can, 1876
The designer’s dilemma is how to keep the beautiful sweetness of this picture, and yet style it with digital graphic design into an image that will capture the attention of our audience.
In this instance, we chose to use the effects filters available on Adobe PhotoShop in order to keep the palette, and the integrity of the image intact while still rendering the effect that we needed for our layout design.
While the photo is beautiful in itself, it needed some digital enhancement to give it the texture and detail needed to pay homage to Renoir’s masterpiece. We tried the obvious first, an oil painting texture, that while nice didn’t quite do the job.
Next, we played with a couple of color and poster edge effects which created almost a coloring page effect.
Lastly, we tried a 3-d extrude effect with masks to preserve the little girl’s features.
We finally settled on this extruded 3D background that gives this interpretation a modern look, yet still retains the color palette and softness of the background of the garden.
Pierre-Auguste Renoir was among a vanguard of artists in the 19th century who pioneered the style of Impressionism. We salute him and other artists who weren’t afraid to step out and color outside the traditional lines of art to create a beautiful and exciting design.
