Abstractions III
The picture on the left has got to be the most comic-bookish
picture I've done in ages. The color's not only fairly flat—though
I did what I could to disguise that—but also far brighter
than anything one normally sees in real life. I find it rather
funny, actually. It's not only comic-bookish but—in some
inexpressible yet unquestionable way—specifically science
fiction comic-bookish. By the way, I made it from a close-up
photograph of a lightbulb—the yellow arcs through the center
of the picture were the edges of the round glass bulb.
This is a case where I drew myself a fairly narrow
range of colors and then smudged them just as randomly as though
they were a photograph. The technique worked very well and the
result is a lovely little mood picture. I can't think of any mood
I'd rather be in than this one.
This is another picture in which I took a black and
white photograph of lace and colored it in. Lace is an excellent
texture to use as the basis for a picture, partly because it's a
complex and well-defined texture which you can morph quite a lot
without causing the texture to disappear, and partly because it's
usually a very bright white, so you can color it any color you
want and your colors will remain bright.
This is from August 2000—another of the many
pictures I've made with the Lacquer plugin made by Sandwater. I
created it, by the way, from a photograph of a pile of old
greyish rotting logs.
I should probably explain why I bother starting pictures with
photographs when my final picture doesn't contain the slightest
trace of the photograph. The main reason is that it's an easy way
to get a wide assortment of colors blended together naturally.
Even when I start out with dull greyish rotting logs, I can
always double the saturation and colors will start to show up
amidst the grey. From there I can adjust the tint, light level,
and shape however I want. When I start out drawing by hand I can't
put any more different colors in the picture than I have time to
click on and select, one at a time. So I have two choices. One
choice is to limit myself to a very narrow range of colors (say,
25 shades ranging from dark reddish purple to light bluish purple),
which works well for mood pictures but gets boring if overused.
The other choice is to use fairly flat color (say, 3 shades of
red, 3 of blue, 3 of green, etc.) which makes the pictures turn
out looking a little comic-bookish. There are times when I don't
mind comic-bookishness, but there are other times when I do.
The other reason I like to start with photographs is to set a
mood as I work. I can choose to work either with the mood or, as
in the case of these rotting logs, against it.
© 1999, 2000 by QueerByChoice. All rights reserved.