1:03 PM: another characteristically windy spring day, with scudding clouds and gusts up to 35mph. our local forecaster says 23mph, but we live in a microclimate, and at our house in the baca grande it's more like 35mph.
i had a good feeling when i entered the studio, and got straight to work, transforming the image from one based upon a bearded fayum portrait to an extreme detail of vermeer's the love letter. i knew from the get go this might well be the final transformation of grey 21. whenever i have ventured outside of vermeer's oeuvre in this series, with one exception, i have not been able to stay with that image, always returning to vermeer. the why is a long conversation, so for now lets just say the deeper my experience of him, the more i'm convinced that he stands apart, both in the entire history of western art and specifically in the history of 17th c. dutch art of the so called golden age. it might be the topic of a future blog post devoted entirely to vermeer, comparing his paintings with his peers and with a broader range of art.
by the way, today's transformation was accomplished using one one brush; one of my favorite fan brushes, which you see in the image on the right
i may do a few tweaks now, before stopping early to try and solve a thorny imovie problem, which i must deal with before loading the latest footage i shot last week in edwards.
BELOW: the top row left is a shot of grey 21 following a scrumble early this morning. and on the right, an early stage of the current version of grey 21. on the bottom row, the detail of her mouth reveals one of the areas i feel needs tweaking. it kind of looks like one of deKooning's angry women right now.
1:47 PM: on the lower right you will see the tweaked version of her lips, which no longer look like deKooning's buck-toothed angry woman series.
