Chicago Artist Drew Seurat's 'Sunday On La Grande Jatte' On An Etch A Sketch
By Mae Rice in Arts & Entertainment on May 9, 2016 6:03PM
Jane Labowitch, 24, has taken Georges Seurat's 1884 painting, A Sunday on La Grande Jatte, to a new level. The painting was on display at the Art Institute, doing just fine for itself—but now it's also Reddit famous, thanks to Labowitch's Etch A Sketch recreation of the waterfront scene (and that one woman's incredible, Kim Kardashian-level bustle).
This was not Labowitch's first Etch A Sketch project. "I've been pretty consistently using an Etch A Sketch as an artistic medium since I first started playing with the toy when I was 4," Labowitch told Chicagoist via email.
In fact, the Horner Park-based artist goes by Princess Etch A Sketch on social media, and currently works part time as a photo retoucher, part time as an Etch A Sketch artist. (She'll be a full-time Etch A Sketch artist starting in June, she said.) Labowitch, who holds a BFA in Illustration from Chicago's American Academy of Art, said she had been thinking about Etch A Sketching this particular Seurat for a while.
"I love this painting so much because I get lost in the dots, sort of how Cameron does in Ferris Bueller's Day Off," she said.
She initially planned to recreate the painting from a digital image, but then she heard the painting had been temporarily moved to a wall facing a "well-placed bench." Ultimately, she decided to go Etch A Sketch it in person—and passersby reacted overwhelming positively to her work."I met people from all over the world who had stories to share about how they had an Etch A Sketch when they were a kid, too."
All told, the recreation above took Labowitch eight hours and four sittings to complete, according to her Imgur post.
Etch A Sketch is usually an impermanent medium—shake it, and the image disappears—but Labowitch said that she has no plans to shake her Seurat Etch A Sketch again. "I'm going to make this one permanent," she said.