Work in progress.............

Another experiment - if it turns out OK then I will post it up on Monday - if not its in the bin!

Gothic Arch - Painting photo copies

This little girl I painted over with inks - but the picture looked too bright and new so I experimented with making it look aged and more like a oil painting so I embossed over it to give it a cracked look. But it still looked too new so....


I rubbed in some brown ink - but she still looked too pale in places.


I started rubbing in some more brown ink.



That's better but I still think she needs a bit more work done on her.



This is the result after 'ageing' the work. It is brighter in real life but by the time I had finished the light had dulled and it had started to rain outside. By brighter - I don't mean lighter - just clearer.

She looks more like a painting now than a photo.

I might well do a bit more when I look at her again.

A word of warning about painting with inks - if you don't have a steady hand the ink can 'leak' onto another place.

In this work I very carefully painted the blue fabric, going over it layer by layer until I got it dark and shaded in some places to give a bit of depth.

BUT

I had inadvertently painted some blue ink onto her hand - well it has spread over it - the paper must have been too wet. One thing you can't do with inks - which you can do with paints - is to ink over a lighter colour to cover up your mistakes.

BUT

I did come up with an ingenious way to rescue the blue stained hand and arm - without turning it into a tattoo.

Gothic Arch - Inky Saturday

I am still experimenting with my new pots of ink - and trying out lots of experiments.

This was a copy of a black and white Victorian photo which I printed off on plain paper then coloured it by painting with inks.

It took ages - well more than two hours - and you need to be patient - which is tough for me.


Close up of layers and 'grass'



Part of the foreground I painted with ink and the gold ink rubbed over it.



I am not very good at painting - so I just painted green ink over the plain background- but it looked too plain - so I smudged some gold ink over it - and it looks a bit like it has been painted on wood - more solid looking.




In 'natural' indoor light in my studio - its hard to imagine that she started off as a black and white copy of an old Victorian photo.



Photo taken under a light so that you can see the rubbed on gold and inked gold - it looks better in real life as the light catches the gold in.




Finally - here she is photographed on a different backing - doesn't it bring the colours out?