Life drawing, 15 minutes, black and watered ink applied with a brush on watercolour paper, A3
Category Archives: portraits
Inky fingers = happy afternoon
In the Gardens
A local photography group organised an afternoon meetup in the Botanical Gardens with a model, so we could practice portraiture in the pretty-yet-tricky sunshine under the trees. These were taken with my faithful 50mm lens and Sony A580 camera, mostly on low iso, f1.8 and reasonably high shutter speeds. We took turns directing our very helpful model, who directed us in directing her.
Miss Amanda Fish
I love the aesthetics of old photographs, the careful poses, the natural light, even the soft decay of an image. I sometimes collect other peoples orphaned ancestors via online auctions – old photos adrift from family albums, rich in costume detail, hinting at lives beyond the camera.
This tiny tintype is, according to the back, Miss Amanda Fish. She would probably not have been a dazzling beauty even in her own time, but she has made a heroic effort to present herself to best advantage, wearing elaborate earrings, a velvet bow with a brooch, and a top with fancy shiny buttons.
Her gaze is wonderfully intent. Was she having her portrait taken to give as a gift to some special man or woman? I’ll probably never know (nothing showed up with a quick online search anyway), but I can enjoy speculating.
Miss Fish may well make her way into a drawing or painting sometime soon.
Drawing from life
A3 Ink and Wash
I’ve started spending a couple of hours in a life drawing group once a week; working from a photograph just isn’t the same thing as working from a breathing, moving model. Plus, a time limit (10 minutes here) helps keep things energetic . . .
Old postcards – Anita, The Living Doll, Ruby Westwood
The freakshow mentality has long outlived the literal freakshow. Now we look at people who are other than the norm safely from our living rooms, in faux scientific documentaries or reality TV shows. Like our Victorian ancestors we are frightened and thrilled, and fascinated and enchanted and entertained by strangeness. Fat, thin, lost or won the genetic lottery, born strange or deliberately making themselves strange: we celebrate and objectify people on the margins.
I can’t help admiring people like the Schappell sisters, who manage to create good lives for themselves, despite an incredibly tough start and challenges that would daunt most. And I can’t help despising parents who make their children into fascinating freaks.
I generally love the aesthetics of early photography, and occasionally indulge myself buying old postcards and photos. With studio portraits of entertainers there is often an interesting tale to be tracked down – online newspaper archives such as Papers Past (in New Zealand) and Trove (in Australia) are wonderful places to browse and be distracted for hours.
Anyway, yesterday, I received my latest $5 online auction purchase, a signed 1912 postcard of Anita, “The Living Doll”. Anita was a very small Hungarian woman who toured the world, met with royalty, always dressed elegantly, and managed to cultivate an aura of dignified intelligence. I hope her life was a happy one and that she retired to live the life she wished; I couldn’t find any mention of her after 1912.
Anita hopefully did better than the young woman in another postcard I have, Ruby Westwood “The Giantess of Foxton”. She and her brother supported a large family by exhibiting their unusual size, from when Ruby was about 7 years old. They traveled first through New Zealand, then to Australia, and eventually to the UK and beyond. But in San Francisco, at age just 19, Ruby pricked her finger on a rose stem, developed blood poisoning and died. Her brother Wilfred’s tale is not quite so sad, after Ruby’s death he managed to reinvent himself as a boy-wonder glass blower, and as an adult managed other entertainers, including travelling through Africa.
Timespanner has compiled a lovely collection of clippings and photographs describing the lives of these “Perfect young giants”.
It seems hard to imagine parents exploiting their children this way, but then I remember (though I wish I could forget) “Honey Boo boo“.
Secrets ready for exposure
Another poster off to the printer today. This intriguing improv show uses audience input as starting points for some well twisted tales.
It’s part of the 2013 Fringe Festival happening in February-March; so if you’re in Wellington, come to opening night, or, ok, one of the other nights.
Hello Photoshop, my old friend . . .
It’s good to play with you again (yes, that darn song is stuck in my head. The ukulele version).
Mixing old photos and a face cast of an older friend - a way to tell corny (and in this case made-up) stories. Tonight I should dig out my little projector, and compare ‘real’ with Photoshop. Hmmm.
Overlay – a wild suffragette past
Overlay – A family past
By the bye, Steve Caplin’s How to Cheat in Photoshop still absolutely my favourite “how-to” guide. I borrowed this four times from the library before buying my own copy, and have since given copies to friends.
Photographic expeditions to the end of the deck …
Some summer afternoons you idle away in pleasantly pottering in the garden doing minor tasks and routine chores: washing dogs, planting out seedlings, chasing butterflies with a camera, and when that fails, playing paparazzi with flies.
I say “you”, but maybe probably, it’s just me.
Tomorrow, I’ll try for the beach. But today . . .
Fly on the edge
Flies with orange eyes
Worrying about the year ahead . . .
Am I really disciplined enough to post a piece of m’art here where anyone can see, once a day, every day for a year? It seems unlikely, but hey, here’s a quick sketch for today.
A4, black and white charcoal on brown paper.
A preliminary sketch going DoE
So, today, starting the process for a painting, with some charcoal studies. This one resisted my attempts at likeness to the original model, and went a bit 1950′s Duke of Edinburghyish.
Sometimes, you’ve just got to go where the picture wants to go.
