I can't believe I haven't popped in to say hello since November! Seeing as how it's now April, that may be a record for the longest I've been away, but I can assure you I have a pretty solid excuse.
For those of you that don't know, I ended up needing carpal tunnel surgery after a very long and difficult project at work. And since using the computer is what caused the problem in the first place, I needed to take a break from that for a bit. Creating new work was also not happening for a while. But, I'm about 95% better now and actually have some new images to share.
Some of you have seen these new images on Facebook, but here is where the die-hard fans (if you're out there) get some background info on these.
First up, we have a re-worked oldie, but goodie:
After the image in my last post, I felt like it was time to experiment with some new techniques. I was digging through some old files and found this polaroid image. It's one I've always liked and in fact, I did a large 11x14 inch c-print of this image about 15 years ago. This 669 print seemed like the perfect candidate to experiment with, and here I ended up using wax crayons (furniture crayons to be specific) on top of the print itself. I kinda like how it turned out...and though it's clearly a one-off, I get the feeling that executing this image may be an important step...because...
next up, we have a piece that could be a new direction for me.
The origins of this image go back quite a long time...probably 8 or 9 years. The original photo this is derived from was actually a contact print from a pinhole negative. I also rediscovered this image in my old files, and decided to play with it a bit...cutting it out, scanning it and then putting it through my normal process to arrive at a rice paper print. But then something happened...the rice paper print didn't work properly, but the remnant ink it was transferred from had exactly the look I was going for. In every other case, I've thrown those remnants away...it never even occurred to me to use them. But, in this case, it worked quite well, and from there, I went to town with some charcoal...something I hadn't used since I was in art school close to 20 years ago! I kind of consider this image the 3rd in a trilogy of work that extends back a long way...both of the others were mixed-media self-portraits of a sort, and I look at this piece in a similar way. It was a fun experience and I must admit that I'm quite pleased with the results.
I have a feeling that I'll be doing more work like this in the future. Some fun discoveries happened along the way and this is a method for me to incorporate some other things into my work in an effective way. I like them, and I hope you do too.
And a promise...I will post again sometime next week...even if I don't have anything interesting to say.
Be well,
Marc
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