Self Portraits

My Friend,

How have you been doing since my last post? As the summer winds down, I find myself no less busy and my posts remain infrequent. For a Saturday morning I am posting a couple of self-portrait sketches.

The first is an airbrush sketch and one of our Yorkshires, the late Obie, standing in front of a mantle. It was quickly executed to experiment with techniques of masking and portraiture.


While preping the image for posting I pushed the image toward the sepia and liked the result. I thought that the photograph in the background, in its abstraction, turned out quite well, yet, I haven't tried to replicate it in any form.

I've also included an exploratory sketch print that is engraving printed over a xylene-xerox transfer. The transfer was of a xerox copy of an architectural image placed face down against the print and then the back is brushed with xylene or a Chart-Pak blender. The area where the engraving will be is masked in this case. Then the engraving is printed. The plate is an acrylic plate cut with engraving tools. I found that the acrylic cut much too easily and the line get quite bold unless care is taken.

I'm finding not much interest or practitioners of contemporary engraving, wood or metal plate. I like the look of engraving and am making a study of it in an effort to do more. Luckily money is excellent work to study. I am using what I learn to influence my painting also. I like the power of the contours to infer volume.

I have prattled on too long and will close now. Have a lovely Saturday.

Brad