I continued my study of values but could not, for love nor money, contain myself to three.
I’ve used a photograph of my father (left) with his brothers on the beach at Riccione in the early 1940s. I love how my uncle’s arm is draped over my dad so gently and casually. And protectively. He was the baby of the family. It makes for a minute moment centred on touch again.
In this first step, with the photo in a background layer, I have filled in the definite blacks.
I then turn the transparency of the photo right down and carry on working, switching it off every now and again to see how I’m doing. I love this drawn in effect. This will come to the fore in later work in an unexpected way.
I sometimes stick a transparent coloured layer between the photo and the work to help distinguish the two and see how much I’ve got left to do.
The sand was trial by repetitive strain injury. In for a pixel in for a byte.
This is the Polaroid taken by close witness Mary Moorman of the Kennedy assassination. It’s interesting to me how the blurry bits on a source image translate (and ‘difficult’ doesn’t begin to cover it) into the values.
