Part of the Process

   This week I have returned to painting. It feels good. It's been a while. These images are tighter than usual. They are inspired by a small gem of an oil painting at the Wadsworth Athenium in Hartford. Not directly from Klee but indirectly I am sure.My image making process requires fresh painted backgrounds just as it requires new photographs from my travels. Inspiration comes and we shift gears.
In this blog, I am focusing on a part of the picture making process that I have not shown before, starting with the collage techniques I have been using since long before digital possibilities opened up. It begins with the unforgiving world of moving real paint around and ends up with the infinitely adjustable world of photoshop.Over the years, I’ve accumulated a vast library of these background paintings, as I call them. They become textural layers or stand alone sections within the finished digital collages. This library of painted imagery goes way back. It started in 2000, after returning from a trip to Japan, making digital collages from photos taken while traveling. These were made with an early Mac laptop and Fuji Pro digital camera. Seems like ancient history.