Friday, October 22, 2010

The Second Cutting - The Male Nude

While the 16"x20" was acceptable for determining if the colors and the image were suitable, I really wanted to create something larger, 30"x40".

In order to show more detail I added another layer, bringing the total to six, black being the one on top, and then five shades of brown/beige down to an offi-white.

The size of this 40"x28" made it somewhat unwieldy to cut and glue together, so much so that looking back on it, it reads as fairly crude.

The original photograh required a lot of retouching and photoshop play in order to get it to where I wanted it to be for translation into a cutting.

In addition, this work more than any other laid bare for me how important color selection was in the choice of the mats.  I bought and cut the mats, and then realized that the bottom two were too light compared to the top four.  I inserted a color between layers three and four and recut the lower ones.

 In the photo on the right you can see the stark contrast between layers three and four.
Some friends have suggested that I deliberately leave layers out, especially the darker ones, which adds an ambiguity as to the subject matter.  I'm on the fence about this.

I generally enjoy that from a distance or if slightly blurred my work which is neither a painting nor a photograph can easily be mistaken for the latter.

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