Tuesday, September 19, 2006

Aunt Anna

You've never seen Manhattan looking like this in your lifetime, have you? The picture was taken in the late 20's, I'm guessing. Could you imagine? No cars! My grandma's family lived in a poor, immigrant neighborhood, so even if there were plenty of cars around, they were scarce in their neighborhood. This picture is of my Great Aunt Anna, who was a vaudeville dancer and who looks like the epitome of the era to me. She's been gone for about 15 years now, but her stories were amazing. I absolutely love the original picture of her.

I do not love this version that I did yesterday in water color pencil. Wrong tool for the job. And I was too lazy to sharpen it until it was too late to do any good. And there was no erasing to be done, hence the 3rd foot. This is all part of the project. I would probably never have shown this purple mess to anyone, but I'm learning to allow myself to make mistakes. Sometimes we have to make bad art to let the good art out.

In response to my complaining about the piece, Carl said, "You could always try it again tomorrow." Exactly! So I did. I'm much happier with the results, but not with the photography. The piece is actually higher contrast than you see here.

None of them do the original photo justice; Anna was so glamorous.

Oh, and P.S. Here's a picture of our Pirate T-shirts!

2 comments:

JustApril said...

I probably never would have noticed the 3rd foot =)) Both of them are neat pics -I'd like to hear some of those stories.

hesira said...

I honestly haven't found a good use for watercolor pencils. They drive me nuts. I like seeing the 3rd foot. Reminds me of Degas. Both pictures look great. Great T-shirt!