Second Hand Sources

Destined to Sit and Gather Dust?

I don't really like using second hand sources (someone else's photos), but there are odd occasions when I do. I painted a view of Gormire Lake a few years ago from someone else's photo, which sold within minutes of an exhibition opening that I put it in. There was a painting of The Shambles that I did from a postcard, which may have sold, but is more likely buried one of the (many) stacks of canvases in my studio. The piece below is an A2 drawing demo that I did for year 10 this year, using a photo of Sir Anthony Hopkins found on-line. I screwed-up the photo, something I was encouraging the pupils to do, and drew from the results using compressed charcoal and adding varnish to selected areas. The whole idea was to get them thinking about selection and distortion. I didn't particularly choose Sir Anthony, I just wanted a contrasty black and white image. I quite liked the results so I glued it onto board and worked into it with wax at home. This leaves me with a bit of a dilemma; what to do with it (and pieces like it)? I'm not sure it is one for the gallery when I rotate my pictures, which leaves adding it to the (growing) stacks of paintings in the studio. I only have so much storage, which may well become less if we knock down the studio and move it to the where the garage currently stands to open up the garden, as we are considering doing. As my parents used to (regularly) say, we'll see.

Distortion and Selection

Charcoal, varnish and wax.