Brief respite?

Whew! My solo show opening was a success, some friends stopped by to say hey, and got a few interested passers-by. I made sure to talk about my techniques, especially with my more recent pieces. The setup looked about like this:

And the other side:

One of the newer pieces, "Arches":

And it was down to the wire, folks...I was up late the Monday and Tuesday before setup on Wednesday, but got five new pieces completed, matted, and framed! The show will be through June 30th, so feel free to stop by, if you're in the Hamilton County area.

I've been working feverishly on the documentary project as well, and would like to share the process of one of the pieces. Basically, I'm providing images, that will be transformed into something different in the course of post-editing. I'm not going to share too much details, but can walk you through the process of one component of one image.

I'm thinking about each of these pieces in layers, typically a foreground layer, and a background layer, or sometimes a mid-ground layer as well. For this component, I'm working on a lineup of kids, that will be in the background. Starting with a rough sketch in vine charcoal:

I then go over the details with more vine charcoal, compressed charcoal, and pencil charcoal to fill in clothing/facial details:

And finally, complete the image:

 There will be a foreground element, of two soldiers facing the kids. This image is about 95% complete, I'll tweak details here and there, before applying a fixative.

So, I've been VERY productive for the past month or so (slacking prior to that though). Now I'll be glad to get a bit of a rest, no longer needing to worry about getting things ready for the show as well as the other projects. The deadline for the 2011 Herron Alumni Show is coming up, so I've gotta get stuff ready for that (some of the pieces I want to submit are hanging at the North Hamilton Library, still need pro photos though!)

Well, that's about it for now, will try to update more soon.

-J