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.

Zero Image pinholes

A while back I took a number of portraits of my friend Crysta. In addition to color film and digital shots, I also took some black and white photos of her. I subjected her to a couple pinhole images. Fortunately, she didn't need to sit long since it was outside on a sunny day (in the past I've forced people to sit still for 20 minutes for a pinhole that didn't turn out...brutal!). Now that I have an Epson Perfection V750 scanner, I can actually scan my larger negatives at a much higher quality (oh happy day!!).

In honor of my new scanner and Crysta, who said she was most interested in the pinholes, here they are.

This is part of a project I've been working at off and on...pinholes of people looking at books. Sometimes you can see the pages in motion. Sometimes less so.

Film shots of Crysta

Here are a couple shots I took of Crysta with my Lubitel. The first one was with a flash, which gives it that cool look of her set off from the blue blue sky. I'm really pleased with how the flash worked with the Lubitel, especially on a bright day.

 This second one is without the flash. You can tell because the separation of foreground from background is less dramatic. Also, there's more shadow on her face and there's a bit of motion blur in her hands. Although this is an odd photo because of her pose, I really like it. It's as though she was just struck by an amazing notion or an invisible creature. Or as though she were part of a modern dance piece.