Ballet portraits

So my daughter attends a ballet studio which is fabulous, and yet also pricey. And every year they do a fundraiser because apparently they are a non-profit organization (which I still do not understand completely) and do not make enough to meet their costs.

I could not even consider giving more money to a studio after already paying its tuition, so I decided I would donate a painting for the silent auction instead.

I browsed the web looking for some inspiration and came across a photo:

 

I totally fell in love with it. The ballet studio she attends is very diverse, with many ethnic backgrounds and I love it doesn't matter what her skin color was, she is just dancing beautifully.

So I took that as an inspiration, and with a different color and a different medium (acrylics), came up with this:

 

I really like how it turned out, but I have to say I felt a LITTLE uncomfortable giving away a painting that looked so similar to the original artist's work with my name on it....


So I ended up painting a whole new painting. I changed the dancer - and with a similar idea came up with this:

 

I felt better about giving this one away, and I was happy that I got to keep the first one to put in my daughter's room!

I was, however, tempted to keep both of them! They worked so well together (I would not hang them like this, but you get an idea):

 

But alas, I did end up parting with it. I'm STILL waiting to hear how much it ended up selling for!
(I did not attend the actual silent auction as tickets to attend would have been $200 which is WAY above our date budget)

Before I gave it up, I tried this on a red wall in my house. It is interesting how it changes....