Tuesday, August 12, 2014

"Drummers" Figure, 8 x 10" Pastel

"Drummers"  8 x 10"  Pastel

Sometimes I luck out and find a great photo that I am able to adjust and turn into my own.  This original photo was very old and in black and white.  The boys were standing in front of some buildings and were reenacting  the Revolutionary war.   I used my own photo of the plantation house at the Historic Powhatan Resort and put that behind them with a simple landscape, added color and changed their likenesses. I do a lot of altering on photoshop before I use any photo, including my own.  Be very careful when using other peoples photos.  If it is not royalty free, you should avoid it, get written permission to use it or attempt to change more than 50% of it as I did here. You can find some great royalty free photos that depict American history at the library of congress web site, which is where I found this gem.

Unlike most of my paintings in color, this is very subdued.  I drew it on grey Canson paper and did the entire thing in charcoal before I had this weird desire to add color.  As a result it is rather gloomy and low key, but that sort of fits the subject.






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