Catch of the Day

16x20 inches, oil over collaged advertisements from 1950s Popular Mechanics

from a small, black and white vintage photo

I carrying on with my experiments using vintage snapshots.  This is larger than I usually work, and this time I used collaged advertisements from a Popular Mechanics magazine as the base. My intention was to have more of the ads showing through, especially at the edges, but my oil paint ended up covering more completely than I planned.  

I had the figures completed for about a week, with the creamy background and ads showing, but the men needed more contrast to make them stand out, so I ended up adding the grass and trees.  I probably should have found a way to make the greens less strong, because now the men look a bit faded to me, an effect I liked before the background was painted.  

Another issue is the fact that the collage papers add quite a lot of texture, which may or may not be good.

But as of now, it is what it is, and I am moving on.  

This weekend I'm driving north to the Minoqua area for a workshop with Robert Burridge at Dillmans.  The workshop deals with figures, use of collage, and abstraction, so we shall see how that affects future experiments in figures. I'm excited to be going!