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cheater art

I got a call yesterday from someone requesting that I donate some art for a silent auction to benefit the local hospice program. How could I refuse since the hospice program has been such a benefit to us with what has been going on lately with my grandma.

I messed with an art idea yesterday that had been on my mind to try but still didn't come up with anything appropriate for their "spring tea" benefit luncheon being held tomorrow afternoon. I was awake this morning at 4 am so I decided to try again and throw together something a bit more tea partyish.

I put a "borrowed" photo through a bit of digital manipulation to make it little less photolike and then made a mask from the outline of the photo printed onto regular copy paper and adhered that onto watercolor paper cut to 5"x7". I then rubbed in powdered pigments all around the masked area and sealed that with matte acrylic. I flipped the photo in the program I was using (Illustrator), printed it onto a transparency sheet, removed the masking from the watercolor paper, rolled hand sanitizer over the background and placed the printed transparency face down and ran both through my etching press. After a couple of minutes I removed the transparency, let it dry, added a few more pigments and sprayed again with matte acrylic. It was super fast and looks more in keeping with their theme but I can't get past thinking that using photo transfers is really a lot like cheating. Maybe if I had done more to make it my own art (like using a photo I'd taken or adding more details and layers) I wouldn't feel so uncomfortable about it. If only I'd had more time.

Comments

marianne said…
hi laurie! i like it- and no one would have ever done this the way you did- or even come up with the same idea- it is art, and it's your art......

i do know what you mean about the pics, tho. i have a very hard time using anything other than my own photos, even though i see lots of art i like where people use free domain stuff.
March 14, 2009 at 12:39 PM
Leau said…
Fabu! And what a great description of the process. Even I could follow that. Only you would have thought of doing it in just that order. smoooches
March 16, 2009 at 7:06 PM
Laurie said…
Thanks Marianne and Leau -- you guys are always so encouraging. :)
March 19, 2009 at 12:41 PM
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