Vector illustration and 2D animation project dedicated to one of the most iconic and mysterious muses in art history – Mona Lisa. Famous for her mysterious smile, Mona Lisa (La Gioconda) portraits Lisa Gherardini, an Italian noblewoman who was painted by Leonardo da Vinci around 1503-1506. Stolen from Louvre in 1911 and vandalized in 1956, La Gioconda was and still is the most famous and one of the most valuable artworks in the world.

My aim was to redraw in a personal manner da Vinci’s portrait of Gioconda, mixing modern and vintage aesthetics: flat colour, block shading, an elegant inking, grain textures, realistic and stylized shapes.

In my interpretation, I chose to highlight Mona Lisa’s decorative elements, including the veil which is almost invisible in the original masterpiece. The image which I used as a reference for this project is a version digitally retouched to reduce the effects of aging, thus the details are more obvious. Because this portrait has a background in the original reference, I kept the main original elements but I stylized them in a modern manner.

Vector illustration created in Adobe Illustrator, on Wacom Cintiq and animated in Adobe After Effects.