Ancestor paintover
I'm trying to practice a technique I learned at Artfest last year and make it my own. Long way from that, but this attempt was a lot better than my first. Thank you, Lisa... things didn't go so well in class, but I guess I learned enough to keep trying.
This is a higher-contrast copy of the original photo. (My grandfather is the guy seated on the far right.) Painting skin color would be tricky in any case, but man... these guys are brothers, and they're all different shades. All of them except my grandfather were long dead by the time I was born. So I'm kinda guessing what their skin tones were like in real life.
This was my first attempt at Lisa Bebi's "paintover" technique, at Artfest. (I've only had two classes so far in acrylic painting.) Not much time to experiment with mixing colors. I also did more of a wash than solid paint at the time. When I first posted that picture, Blaiz gave me the paint colors that would work for African American skin, and I practiced this week.
First, it helped to copy the photo a little darker and more high-contrast than usual. The eyes came out sharper, and the shadows didn't get blotted out so easily by the paint.I mixed Transparent Red Iron Oxide (Golden) with Burnt Umber (DecoArt Americana) as his basic color, then mixed in a little Warm White (Americana) for the highlights. The shadows are Ultramarine Blue (Golden) blended with the basic color mix, to produce a muddied shade. It looked a little stark, so I washed it with the basic mix and that seemed to smooth things out.
This brother looked like he had more red in his skin. So I did the same basic color mix, except in a 2:1 ratio. Also washed the painted face with the 2:1 ratio.Oh yeah -- the hair on both men was a wash of Burnt Umber and Lamp (Black) Ebony (Americana).
Not worried about the little bleed-over spots; I'm going to mess with this a little more. Then I'm going to scan the final piece and put it into a genealogy photo album.
Hey, does anyone know a way to scan something that has a transparency in it? Or do you really just need to photograph it at the appropriate angle with the right lighting? Thoughts?
Hi, Daddy.
Today is the second anniversary of my father's death. He would've been 70 in June of that year. (My mom died seven years prior.)
There's not much to say when both your parents are gone, except "It sucks."
I could write until I keeled over and still not convey their respective essences. I am just not that good of a writer.
It's odd: I feel almost like my father was not someone I knew personally, but a storybook character I grew up with. Which is really bizarre, considering that we were very close, yet I was completely aware of his human flaws. It's just that... I will never be able to hear his opinion about anything important to me again. I can tell him; he can't respond except as a whisper of what I would expect he'd say.
I'm starting to feel the same way about my mother. I suppose it might have something to do with the genealogy research I'm doing, because I'm hearing perspectives from my father's brother and my mother's sister. They're becoming narratives.
I guess I'll light a mental yahrtzeit candle and let it go at that. I'm not Jewish, but I like the idea.
There's not much to say when both your parents are gone, except "It sucks."
I could write until I keeled over and still not convey their respective essences. I am just not that good of a writer.
It's odd: I feel almost like my father was not someone I knew personally, but a storybook character I grew up with. Which is really bizarre, considering that we were very close, yet I was completely aware of his human flaws. It's just that... I will never be able to hear his opinion about anything important to me again. I can tell him; he can't respond except as a whisper of what I would expect he'd say.
I'm starting to feel the same way about my mother. I suppose it might have something to do with the genealogy research I'm doing, because I'm hearing perspectives from my father's brother and my mother's sister. They're becoming narratives.
I guess I'll light a mental yahrtzeit candle and let it go at that. I'm not Jewish, but I like the idea.
ATCs, etc.
Well, thank y'all so much for the praise and flattery about the ATC with the transparency door! I did decide to make a couple more; one's done, the other will be soon. (Tally, check your mailbox.)
I realized I'd only done two with hedgehogs (part of the "Forest Floor" theme of this year's Artfest) so I might incorporate them into a couple more ATCs. Plus, woodland mythical creatures -- when else am I going to get such an opportunity to use the various brass/transparency/stamped wings in my stash? This is also a great chance to put to work some of that Greek mythology clogging my brain.
In other news, I made some calls to relatives about more genealogy stuff. I'm distantly related to the head pastor of a prominent African American church in the South, and he clarified a couple of relationships. It gets hard to keep track of these people, since most of them were farmers with lots of kids, who named their children after their siblings: "Bob Smith" names his daughter "Mary" after his sister "Mary," who was named for her aunt "Mary."
But I figured out that if I can get a death certificate for the pastor's grandfather, I'll figure out more about my own grandfather's female relatives. Generally, men are easier to track down than women, since their names usually stay the same for life. (And they're never listed as "Mr. Wife's Name" in official documents.) But our family genealogy expert explained to me that death certificates often list a person's mother by her maiden name -- which of course helps you find other relatives. Here's hoping.
I realized I'd only done two with hedgehogs (part of the "Forest Floor" theme of this year's Artfest) so I might incorporate them into a couple more ATCs. Plus, woodland mythical creatures -- when else am I going to get such an opportunity to use the various brass/transparency/stamped wings in my stash? This is also a great chance to put to work some of that Greek mythology clogging my brain.
In other news, I made some calls to relatives about more genealogy stuff. I'm distantly related to the head pastor of a prominent African American church in the South, and he clarified a couple of relationships. It gets hard to keep track of these people, since most of them were farmers with lots of kids, who named their children after their siblings: "Bob Smith" names his daughter "Mary" after his sister "Mary," who was named for her aunt "Mary."
But I figured out that if I can get a death certificate for the pastor's grandfather, I'll figure out more about my own grandfather's female relatives. Generally, men are easier to track down than women, since their names usually stay the same for life. (And they're never listed as "Mr. Wife's Name" in official documents.) But our family genealogy expert explained to me that death certificates often list a person's mother by her maiden name -- which of course helps you find other relatives. Here's hoping.