Julius Caesar drawing progression

He took about 30 hours to draw, but I'm finally finished with my charcoal drawing of Julius Caesar. Although there were a couple times I was a little tired of gazing at him, all in all I never got bored of working on this drawing. Here's the picture progression from the block-in phase all the way to the final modeling stage. I'm pretty pleased with the results considering it's only my third drawing in classical drawing style.

I was so happy to put in the background so he would stand out a bit more.

 

He got a little googly-eyed at this stage.

Eventually, I got the eye to the right spot on his head.

 

The final version...I shot this at home with different lighting, hence the color shift.

A mini-pinhole

These are a couple film canister pinholes I took a bunch of years ago in Portland, OR. I was taking a self-portrait of myself and the fellow on the right asked me what I was doing. When I told him I was taking a pinhole shot, he volunteered to "sit" for a portrait. I taped the canister to the railing and exposed for probably about 15 seconds. I used lith film since it was easy to load in the darkroom and easy to tray develop. Because it's lith film, there are lots of little black and white marks in the negative. I removed some with Photoshop but it's really too thankless a job to clean up entirely. Plus, I consider it part of the aesthetic. The negatives were contact printed on silver gelatin paper. I scanned from the print.

Autumn showers bring mushrooms

Wheatridge Grange

Someone had taken the time and effort to cover the exterior of this building with metal sheeting to keep it from getting damaged. However, they never bothered boarding up the doors. The back side interior of the grange was in overrun by pigeons. It looked like prime hanta virus breeding ground. Needless to say, I didn't go inside. I took this picture last month with my Fujica 6x4.5 film camera.

Double exposure surprise

Last weekend, I developed four rolls of film. While loading two of them, I noticed that they didn't feel right...one loads roll film for development completely in the dark so you can't visually inspect what you're doing. I thought it was odd that there was tape attaching the front of the roll to the paper backing. I chalked it up to it being slightly odd film (Adox 50). While I was in the development process (18 minutes of developer time gives you a lot of time to ponder things), I realized that I probably was developing two rolls of unexposed film. Although this possibility was extremely annoying and seemed more likely as I continue to think about it while processing, I didn't scrap the process because there was a chance that I hadn't screwed up (a very, very slim chance).

Well, one roll was completely blank. However, one of the rolls had been sent through two different cameras on two different occasions. The results were surprisingly good. One set of shots had been taken on the streets of Paris with my Lubitel square format while the other set had been taken at Burroughs Mountain at Mount Rainier with my Fujica 6x4.5.

The mannequins had been abandoned in the street along with some garbage. Notice how there are two shots overlapping the Paris shot in picture one. There is a slight overlap of two shots in the second picture.

Although I was bummed that I screwed up with one roll (especially since Adox 50 is a soon-to-be disappeared film), I am really happy with my error. I don't know that I'll do that deliberately in the future, but I might consider it.

Bad film and a dark night

I had some expired Kodak film (I think it was from 2003) lying around that I decided to abuse before actually using it. I stuck it on the deck to bake in the sun for a couple days and then put it in the Ansco cheapie camera and left it there for at least a month before finishing the roll. Well, most of the shots were crap...though the grain of the film turned into what looked like astro turf. Here is an example of the astro turf look. This is a photo of my friend, Carla in the woods. Rather than look like her usual lovely self, she appears to be being eaten alive by grass.

Anyhow, I did get one shot that I kind of like. It's a shot of the ferris wheel at the Puyallup Fair with a smear of lightness across it. With a little tweaking in Lightroom, it looks a little better.

Ghost house Eastern Washington

We found this really beautiful abandoned house in Adams County, Washington last weekend. I call these houses "ghost houses" since they are similar to ghost towns except there's no town surrounding them. Just sad, empty houses whose owners are long gone and probably forgotten. It was ideal since I was able to walk right up to it and get some closer shots.

Autumn colors along route 20

Drove back from eastern Washington yesterday in heavy rains. Taking photos was pretty difficult since it was so wet and I didn't have an umbrella. Fortunately, there were some turn-offs that allowed for shooting from the safety of the car. Here's an example of the color that can be seen in the mountains at the moment. So beautiful. If you get a chance to go right now, I encourage that type of reckless behavior.

Beauty in the everyday

I like to keep my camera close by: even when I'm doing something as ordinary as cleaning dishes or making dinner, something often catches my attention. In this case it was the sink with the colander and a shadow and the counter with light reflections through a glass pot.

Colander, sink, and cast shadow

Orange counter with light, glass and tomatillo sauce

Jawbone

This jawbone was found in the Wind River Range in Wyoming. Unsure what it is. A ruminant of some sort...maybe a goat or a sheep.

Stumps of Alder Lake

This photo was taken with a Fujica 6x4.5 using Efke 100 at Alder Lake in Elbe, WA during last Thanksgiving.

Wizened fruit

When fruit is too old to eat, it's still good for photographs.

Chipmunk nearly Berkeley Park

Last weekend we spent a night at Berkeley Park in Mt. Rainier. The camping area is about 4 miles north of the main parking lot at Sunrise. Nothing to complain about - beautiful weather, dry, sunshine, quiet. We were lucky enough to spot a herd of about 17 mountain goats on a ridge to our west. In addition to the big critters, we saw quite a few little guys like picas, marmots and chipmunks like this fellow.

Alternative Processes - Done Digitally

I've been spending quite a bit of time working on recreating alternative processes using Photoshop. I've had varying degrees of success. I've been a bit stymied by gum bichromate. Fortunately, I've finally managed to get something that feels more true to the process than my previous attempts.

3-colour digital "gum bichromate"

Here is the original image that I started with:

I'll have to see how I like it when I print it on nice paper.

This is an example of a "cyanotype" I created as well:

All in all, I feel as though I'm moving forward and learning how to reproduce the techniques a bit better. It will still be digital approximation of the techniques, which I'm preferring to look at as more freeing rather than a lesser imitation of the original processes. I've dealt with the chemistry and the fussiness of the processes before and feel as though it was enough. I'm happy to deal with digital fussiness which also means less toxicity.

A Proud Pigeon at the Puyallup Fair

This pigeon was posing for me beside his award. He just kept standing there, making sure I noticed that he was a champion. I must say, he was very good looking for a pigeon.

Progression from negative to encaustic

I thought I'd post a 3-picture progression of how I progressed from a negative to a finished encaustic piece.

First, I scanned the 35mm black and white negative and made some adjustments in Lightroom.

I then printed the picture on lightweight paper (in this case, plain old copy paper) so that it would adhere more easily to the board.

I then did a little doodling and hand-coloring to change things up a bit. I used colored pencils, Pitt India ink pens and a Sharpie white poster paint marker.

Finally, I coated the picture with wax medium and fused it to a board that had also been coated with  medium. I then added oil paint, incised marks, some oil pastel, and metallic paint pigment that was mixed with water.

All I need to add now are a couple of eye-screws and wire to the back for hanging. I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out.

Hummock at sunset

Another picture from the scab lands

Scab Lands

Because I have so many photos that I like but seem to be slow about printing, I thought I'd try to post some of them to the blog.

I took this shot during last year's Thanksgiving trip to the Washington scab lands.

Cheapie camera

I took the shot below with an Ansco 1065 camera that I found at a yard sale or Goodwill or somewhere else like that. It cost me all of about $2. The camera has a fixed lens with absolutely no focusing other than distance. As far as aperture, it has Cloud - dull or bright and Sun settings for 400 ASA and Cloud, Sun - hazy or bright settings for 100 ASA. That's it. I'm not sure if the picture is fuzzy because I moved or because I was out of the focusing "sweet spot" (whatever it may be).

Construction site shack

Anyhow, it's a great camera to take with me on my bike since I don't care if it gets sweaty from being pressed to my back or if I drop it or it breaks or it gets rained on or anything, because it cost about $2. Cheap or not, I think I like this little guy.

Salamander?

I don't know whether this is a salamander or some other amphibian or reptilian creature. These guys are really fast. Sadly, this fella wasn't fast enough to avoid getting killed by a car (perhaps my car). Initially, I thought he was alive but realized he wasn't when I went to pick him up (oddly enough, I can pick up dead insects, birds and reptiles, but not rodents).

 I added the leaf to create a sort of dead still life. Would you call that a "still dead"?

 Did you know they have teeth?!! I didn't. It's amazing what you learn when you use the macro function on your camera.

Close-up of his teeth

I hate to say it, since it sounds weird, but I like dead critters since I can actually photograph them. Living are nice but they don't sit still long enough to let you get good shots.

Encaustic workshop with Larry Calkins

I spent the weekend at the NW Encaustic Center learning encaustic collage with Larry Calkins. Collage isn't really one of my skills so it was a challenge to get myself pointed in the right direction. My inclinations are for less elements so I can get stymied when I have tons of materials and options available. It's kind of like having a refrigerator filled with really great food and feeling the urge to use everything in one meal.

I was given two large wood panels and access to lots of postcard-sized boards. Starting with a large panel was too much for me, so I backed off and went to the small boards since I'm much braver on a canvas with limited real estate. I finally got loosened up and started playing with the different techniques Larry (and Shaun Doll, the owner of the studio) demonstrated, the vast array of source materials,  and the variety of colored waxes available. I finally made something I liked when I found a rhomboid-shaped scrap board that I added some of my repeating dead birds, a transfer of a handwritten letter, and some oil paint stamps on tissue paper.

Here's what this first one looks like:

Dead robin detail

Detail of oil paint stamps

Today, I decided to try to make another one with a similar feel. 

Charcoal & pastel drawing on tissue paper

I really like the tissue paper transfers that we learned...much better than the water technique I've been using, which is prone to running. I also learned about using shellac with wax (firing it with a propane torch), which creates beautiful "lace" patterns. I'll post a photo of my shellac attempt on another evening.

If you ever get a chance to take a class with Larry or see his work, I highly recommend it since he's a wealth of information and an extremely talented artist.

When I got back home, we chilled on the deck enjoying the nice weather and a beer. Then, we ate an excellent roast beef with spaghetti squash, salad and zucchini meal that Levi had made while I was out. A really great weekend.