Art nouveau Dance - reproduction on wood

I have a precious box which was accompanying me for years. When I left home and went to study at University, it was always with me. I kept my collection of incenses inside of it along with other useful things. When I moved through the entire Europe, it went with me and now it's still on my shelf...

Just a dark brown ordinary wooden box: 38 cm long, 14,5 cm wide, 9,5 cm tall. It was always plain without any pattern. But I decided to give it a bit of character, which could be my simple thank you for the item that has never abandoned me.

I was inspired by the original painting of Alphonse Mucha's Dance (from the Arts serries, 1898). I loved the idea of it, the movement, dynamism and colors refered to flames. It was breathtaking, so I came with an idea of re-painting it, of making reproduction of it on wood using my own chosen colors...

I was painting it for seven days, next two days were meant for covering details with golden paint and another two days - for coating. In sum: eleven long days, begining with a simple pencil sketch. But I'm really proud of the ready-made product ;)

Of course my camera can't capture gold paint properly, so it will be the best to say that gold has been used in a huge ammount all over the box. Still - I didn't have any idea about sides of the box so currently they remain brown with a golden stripe at each corner.


All paints used for creating this reproduction were acrylic, because for me it's really easy to mix them with dry brushes, they leave nice smudged effect all over the surface and can be beautifully set in a special colour palette. As you can see, I've changed some colors of the original Mucha's painting to my own:

That was the very first box I've painted with acrylics and I've already got addicted to it. It's really time-consuming but it's really worth it, looking at the final piece...

My favorite box got a new life and became a famous object in my house gaining interest of visitors. I think it's just the beginning of my acrylic adventure, a really great one!

And here are three low-quallity photos of work-in-progress (I apologize for lack of professionalism in taking them, I used my iPhone for it)...